Wed. May 13

couple babies at the gate.. 1 on the milk program, another just out of the hospital after spending onek din(many days) with pneumonia, etc. needing help with hospital bills. 

And the beggar girl, quietly asking for a dress for her 2 yr old sister.. “mama, poshak, please?”

Got half of a bodice cut out 😅

 Gentry took a couple bangs..just those baby bangs that seem to be inevitable.. Fell off the couch onto the ceramic tile floor this morning. Then later, Annslie was slinging his paci on a string round and round and got him good right behind the ear. Later face planted from a sitting position, but these ceramic floor tiles are so unforgiving…And he always yells Loudly when he gets hurt so it makes it seem really bad!

Dipti cooked lunch.. fried chicken, okra, rice and dhal

I mixed up a batch of loaf bread

Maddie’s been experimenting with her green thumb.. researching all the flowers and plants on the property, planting new little flower and plant sprouts, broken cactus pad, watermelon seeds, etc…. Watering, reporting to us about it all! The rescued vinca sprout was checked on Again right before she went to bed, the bud is just about to open and she’s pretty sure it’s gonna be white!.. all the others on the establishment are purple. In the morning, we heard her go out before we were out of the bedroom. The report? “My flower bloomed, and it Is white!”🤗

Tues. May 12

 Tulshi is not feeling well again and wanted to go get it checked out so sick day for him. 

Lonnie went with Dipti’s husband (rickshaw van driver) to pick up meat from Batiaghata…pork and chickens. Then he takes the job of washing all the bone chips of the whacked chunks of pork and cutting the chickens up so there isn’t any bone chips.

After school when Miss Christina was getting started in the kitchen as it was her night to cook, I took Annslie and Gentry on the stroller. Found Lonnie at the repair dhokan next door where he likes to help out. He tells the story of one lady that just outright laughed when walking by she saw him working there! When asked what was so funny.. “bedeshi kaj(work)!?” And the next day when she came by with her young son again she came right in to inspect his work 😅 Anyway, this afternoon, Lonnie had just got washed up and joined me on my walk. Down the road a pc we met a lady carrying her mentally handicapped daughter around. 10 yrs old and can’t walk, her tongue does not stay in her mouth, and her eyes don’t focus. The mom, of course, asked for help from us. Wants treatment for her dau. She says one of her 3 other dau. died at 18 from a cancerous tumor on her eye. So much sadness, but the mom seemed to be of general cheerfulness.. bless her.

Fri. May 8

 The folks at the Chakrakhali S.S. said there would be no children coming. So, only 1 S.S. today here up the road.

Grilled drumsticks and thighs, baked potatoes, and Chinese cabbage salad lunch 

4:00 service

The littles were still napping so I stayed home till they woke. Caught a call from my sister in law in Tanzania. Then hustled the littles to church and got in on the last 1/2.

Shanto’s invited us to come down after church. It had been way too long with sick children n all. Shanto picked up some fried snack foods… pudi and fried eggplant and some butter cookies. Rhidoy and Pinky’s absence is keenly felt, but they plan to be back end of this month for their 1st visit back home, on their Eid vacation days.

Sun May 10 Mother’s Day 💐

 Lonnie offered to pick up dim n ruti but we had just got it this week already so he put some eggs on to boil. Maddie fried sausage patties. Jaira peeled the eggs. We had Kellogg’s cornflakes with honey, a product of India. A lot like Frosted Flakes back home.

A school day

We had been notified that the Police would be showing up today. Jon from Dhaka (who helps us with our legal work) found out that we have a new police over our district and his recommendation was that we serve them tea and good snacks when they come today. 

I made Mexico enchiladas (Down Home Southern Cookin’ book) for lunch. The watermelons have been Really good and we enjoyed one for lunch.

The police showed up round 2:30. They wanted to talk to Tulshi, but he had decided they weren’t coming today after all and was still gone on lunch break. Well, they declined staying for cha, saying they needed to talk to Tulshi. Lonnie had made up a professional looking paper with the police’s name on it and a big Thank You. Listing attributes that we are grateful for. A Bangla seal on the bottom and a Bangla flag in the background of the letter. Mr. Police took one look at it, giggled, then looked at it a couple more times when he was on his motorcycle😉 

Lonnie and I went for a little walk with the Bud exploring paths around us we hadn’t been down before. 

Maddie wanted to make a snacky supper. She summoned Miss Christina and Jaira for help and they got busy in the kitchen😘…Fried potato slices, choc chip cookies( and icecream ), veggies and ranch, and piña coladas.

The girls had made me a very pretty card and small (like 1 month) daily calendar that was a joint effort during school art time.🫶🏼

We played Dominos later.

Sat May 9

 Dominos 

Safe n Save Milon invited us to have lunch sometime

Saw the German family we met last week, looked like maybe they had guests with them?

Shwapno ran into Lamar and his son and met another white lady that hails from Iowa! 

All sudden, we see more white people in one day than we’ve seen the whole time we’ve been in Khulna!?!

At the veggie market, they brought me hot tea And a Coke!

Thurs May 7

 Video called with my big sister and fam. for an hour while Dipti was washing dishes and floors. During which we had a Very t i n y baby at the gate wanting to get on our milk program. These people and their baby’s age can be very confusing at times!?! They kept telling us the baby was 7 months! And there was just no possible way for that to be!?! Finally Lonnie thought to ask what It’s birth date was and they said March - -. So we think the baby was maybe born at 5 or 7 months gestation and now it’s actually only 2 months. Which seemed much more believable! When I saw the lady at the gate with a pink blanket in her arms, I said, there can’t be much of a baby in there! Even for 2 months, it was extremely small. The mother is in the hospital..

Otherwise got lunch on, made cookies, took care of littles, and a load of laundry.

Wed. May 6

 Woke up to the word that my little sister is in the hosp. after getting run over by a pickup!! Not the kind of thing one Ever wants to hear and for sure not when you’re on the other side of the world!! The tires went over her legs. She was not able to move them, so she went by ambulance to the hosp. Xray shows that they are not broken!?! And on pain killer, she is able to move them, but too painful to bear weight on them.😏 We are thankful her life is spared🤍She did land on her arm so she has a broken left arm that needed a pin.   The story is: the children and her had loaded prunings from the yard in the back of the pickup. They had to go thru the pig pen to get to the burn pile so Trina was trying to keep the pigs from escaping while her oldest dau. drove thru the gate. The accelerator instead of the brake was used, knocking Trina down, even tho she made a leap to get out of the way… Mom went the next morning to be a helping hand around the place while Trina heals. 

Over here in Bangladesh life goes on, the girls go upstairs to school, Dipti arrives and makes fish curry for lunch, the Police show up at the gate.. they keep tabs on us and try to keep up with our legal status.. Lonnie spends time just down the road at a repair dokan again, helping when the opportunity arises..

Tonight on our walk, we find ourselves walking the same direction as one of Lonnie’s Muslim friends. He  tells Annslie to come to his house. He has told Lonnie  other days to come, as is common in this culture, but so far Lonnie has told him, Another day. Tonight we took him up on the invitation. We followed him down the path to his concrete house. Quite nice by village standards! His wife and daughter in law are there also. He quickly walks back to the dokan to pick up Sprite and cookies. Sets the coffee table in front of us and pours a pitcher of water. Switches the TV from Bangla drama to cartoons for Annslie even tho we told him we didn’t need the TV. But the prayer call was sounding, so he left us there with the ladies🤔 His wife actually did very good with throwing English into the conversation! And the daughter in law was so shy she was hanging out in the kitchen. We told her to come join us! She had married into the family only 5 months ago. And when we asked her age, we were a little taken aback. We know it’s common here but still, here she is 16 yrs old, living away from home with her husband’s family🤦🏼‍♀️ Lonnie asked her if she wanted to hold Gentry and she did not hesitate to take him up on the offer. She relaxed as predicted, children can be a real asset at times🫶🏼 We did not stay long and finished our walk home.