Fri Feb 28 “Sunday”

 Mom’s traditional coffee cake for breakfast then jumped in with Jared’s to go to church at the clinic.

Our interpreter was there so we could have a bona fide opening and short sermon with the songs. Two 6,7? yr olds that are currently patients at the clinic with their moms joined our service. After the benediction Lonnie asked the children to gather for some impromptu “Sunday school” songs. He had talked about David and Goliath and wanted to sing “Only A Boy Named David” with them. We also sang The Wise Man and the foolish man both with all the actions. The natives joined in well! They have The Wise Man and the Foolish Man in the Bengali songbook that we use so we sang it in Bangla next😊. We always stay a little while and visit after. Then we went to Farmhouse Burger for lunch.https://maps.app.goo.gl/zeAJumSkNqoYiuJQ8?g_st=com.google.maps.preview.copy

But nobody got burgers😉 Instead it was tacos, quesadillas, chicken fingers, fries, Mac n cheese, and shake😄

Stopped by Uní mart to grab more diapers for Annslie.

Went for a nice long walk with the family. Out the PinkCity gates back behind our house down a sandy road with low shrubby green “country side” to our left and what looks like forgotten bricked rice paddies to the right?… 

Rice, beans, grilled chicken (out of the freezer), + vinaigrette for supper.

  

Thurs. Feb 27

 After school-12:30 

We all piled in Jared’s rig again and headed to Jamuna Future Park

https://maps.app.goo.gl/cRk1EgaHXbFxNqq47?g_st=com.google.maps.preview.copy

An expansive shopping mall with 7 floors supposedly one of the largest in the world!…?..

We started with lunch at Burger King. Then Miss Shana offered to take the 1st hour shift with the children at an indoor playground. 

Jared’s and us headed to find a tortilla press for the guest house. Then on to Mr.D.I.Y. Like Brianna says, kind of like a 5 below. Fun shopping and got a few things for the house. Then on to find the elusive Artisan clothing store. Brianna and I found the small version and the men found the main store so then we had to locate the men! We eventually found them and both found the children’s clothing that we were looking for😊

The men took their turn with the children in the play area while we shopped for groceries yet. Hauled all the purchases out to the van. Then back inside to the coffee shop while Miss Shana finished up her afternoon.

Wed. Feb 26

Happy birthday Dad!🎂

Annslie is all the time lighting up with “Papa!” at motorcycle sightings!😊

Went to the clinic for lunch with our Sisters and Miriam. We love their lunches! This time it was roast beef curry(a little spicier), cubed pumpkin, a cooked tomato dish, with the rice, cucumber slices, and dal. Coke, Sprite, and water to drink.

After lunch Maddie and I went with Brianna and Miss Shana down the street a pc. And up a couple flights of stairs to the tailor that they use. Shana had fabric to be sewn for when she goes home. She’d brought a picture along of a dress she wanted it sewn like. This tailor is seriously talented/skilled and Miss Shana has put his expertise to the test trying all sorts of patterns out!😄 He just looked at the picture a bit, asked a few questions, and took some measurements from a dress she’d brought along. The bill was less than $5 and it would be ready in just over a week!

Next Brianna gave instructions for a handful of pcs mostly for her toddler and 1 for herself.

    Just as we stepped in the door back at the house, the power went out. So, time to do some studying…

5-6:00 we were invited to Jared’s for “Coffee” to meet our interpreter Naton who’d been out of town last week. He had another youngish fellow with him also who lives in the same house. I couldn’t wrap my tongue/brain around his name but Naton says it means love..

  Miss Shana made some Dee-Liscious fruit smoothies!! Squeezing limes, oranges,.. blending frozen pineapple, strawberries, papaya, mangoes,…and Brianna put out the full spread of cold cuts, sliced mozzarella + American, pickles, and fresh out of the oven monster cookies😊

 Naton kept us entertained with his stories.. his frightening experience out in the Big ocean by a coral island, with Blue water! He went into great detail about his guided jet ski ride that absolutely petrified him!.. the waves made it feel like this huge body of water was breathing… and he had never understood before why people would die when they would travel by “sheep” and it would be made unseaworthy by storms etc. But now he understands! He would die of fright before anything else! He couldn’t even let his feet be in the water for fear of what large creature was probably lurking right under the surface just waiting!

And then his next story was of the Hindu woman that was possessed by a spirit of one of their gods. She had supernatural strength and he told about the process of making the spirit leave her!

Tues Feb. 25 🎂

 Today we celebrated the birth date of Dad + Mom’s 4 th child born in 1988🥳 This was Not a baby boom yr as far as we can tell and personally know only a handful of folks born this year! So, if you know one or are one, just know it’s rare! .. until I’m convinced otherwise😉

   I felt unsure of how the day was gonna proceed after a roach at least 4x the size of what I’d formerly known, scuttled across my foot while I was mixing up muffins for breakfast😱😵‍💫

 The rounds have been made with the roach spray by the man of the house and the number of sightings has stopped at 3 in the following 24 hrs🙂

Miss Shana brought cranberry orange muffins, in fancy papers✨, when she came over for school in the morning💛

The big girls spent the morning at school, Annslie with Brianna and Shania, and Lonnie and I with Ponnina around the dining room table attempting to absorb more Bangla into our brains.

Question words-13

Visual verbs -34 (pronounced”varbs” by our teacher, sometimes it takes a minute just to realize she’s talking to us in our native tongue but with a twist to it that we’re not familiar with😅 the last time she was here she informed us she’d be back “ Tweez”day🧐 my brain was so sluggish after the 1 1/2 hrs of Bangla that I’d just couldn’t decipher that one for a bit🙃 sometimes I just give Lonnie a blank look and ask if he got what she said sometimes he’s got it and sometimes not! Then she has to try to explain or say it with different words til the “light bulb comes on”!)

Visual objects/nouns- 25

And ended with 5 conjunctions.

Lunch- pulled grilled chicken out of the freezer and made slaw to go on our sandwiches, apple/strawberry salad.

After Annslie’s nap we opened gifts sent along from home for this day🎉

Today would normally be singing at the clinic in the evening but one of the Sisters was sick so we walked to Jared’s at 5:00 and went out for supper still😊

Brianna gave me a gift of one of the little clay pots with a lid and spoon and flower design carved around it.☺️Like what could be used for salt or something.

They took us to another rooftop restaurant for supper! They have some amazing restaurants here and the plate cost was under $10 a person!! This one served Indian style food and we ordered butter chicken. My family pigged out on the Dee-Liscious naan bread! We ordered fun drinks also! Mint lime mojitos and they were out the eye catching one that Layton usually gets so Jared order a pitcher of orange juice instead. While we waited on the food to come out us ladies went out on this 13th floor balcony with the toddlers and children. It was a beautiful evening with a gentle breeze and an orange ball of Sun hanging low in the sky. We visited and watched several jets take off from the airport nearby and otherwise observed traffic from our bird’s eye view. 

https://maps.app.goo.gl/podDtqiLyBYEoEVn6?g_st=iw

After supper we went down a few floors and shopped.

Some shopped at a book store while Jaira and I went to find a bathroom. Here the women are definitely considered inferior so we had a bit of a time finding the ladies wash room! There were plenty of men’s to be found with a string of stalls in them (I unknowingly went into one of them🫣) but Only One ladies room with One toilet! Truly pathetic.

Then on down another floor or so to a grocery store, Schwapnos. Where I got some more produce and Lonnie alerted us to the contents of the meat case display. So, we all had to go check it out😎 skinned sheep heads all nicely lined up, eyeballs still intact! (If I hadn’t seen my share of those in our pasture back home it would’ve probably been more repulsive🫣) and then little piles of brains next to them!!

Current temps

accuweather://navigation/daily/day/2/27 

It’s Spring, so we’re enjoying the beautiful weather😊

ebruary

T

25

86°

Its i It’s 

65°

1%

W

26

86°

67°

0%

T

27

87°

67°

0%

F

28

89°

70°

2%

S

1

90°

72°

2%

S

2

93°

Mon. 24th

 Lonnie was at Jared’s by 9:00 to sign for the business side of things. Then him and Jared spent most the rest of the day doing some shopping for some things here at the house, a phone for me, laptop, putting Lonnie’s name on the bank accounts,…

Lucky, the maid, came to mop floors(this whole house is tile floors-2 levels, plus a wide, marble? staircase), clean bathrooms(there’s only 5), and dust. 

School lets out at 12:30 and the girls were begging to have Brianna and crew for lunch(the daddies would not be home yet) so I messaged asking if she had lunch cooking, she was just pulling leftovers out, but would take us up on the invitation!🤗 she brought fried ice cream toppings and ran to a dokan for more ice cream. I’d put enchiladas in the oven that Miss Shana had made for our freezer😉 Were they ever yummy! Made with homemade tortillas, they truly hit the spot!

Layton played with the girls up on the roof in the water for awhile before his mama summoned him home.

Got some good studying in today with a real incentive of another lesson tomorrow!! 

Lonnie biked down the road a piece and found a barber🤗 $3 included a massage even🤩 and this wife is happy with the haircut🙌🏼

Sun. 23

 Sunday is like a Monday here.

Layton joined the girls for school this morning. So now Miss Shana is teaching 3 grades- 1st, 3rd, and 5th.

I swept floors. This place is the King of dust bunnies!

Lonnie cleaned the roof tops, was pretty bad after the wind and rain last night! I started the laundry. Lonnie proceeded to take the door off the wardrobe in the master bedroom. It smelled so musty I didn’t want to use it, thought if it had some ventilation maybe it wouldn’t be so smelly!?

  Bout that time, Doyle’s came by with his folks that just flew in Sat from Nova Scotia, Jake + Paula Barkman. We told them to come on in for a tour. 

School out at 12:30

Lunch. Was fun to make a fruit salad out of fresh, full of flavor, fruit that I hadn’t paid an arm and a leg for!

Cabbage with fresh squeezed lime juice, etc and also tomatoes with the same enhancements as part of taco stack.

Worked on a big laundry day, Lonnie helped hang a couple line-fuls.

The power blinked quite a few times. Mid afternoon it stayed off. Decided it was time to walk down to Jared’s and return the hair trimmer. Ended up staying awhile visiting at the dining room table and collecting a basket more of household items to borrow🙃

Back at the house, Lonnie got a step stool set up and the electrical box opened to see about changing out a part and that’s when our power came back on!🤷🏼‍♀️ Sure won’t complain!! 

Sat. 22 A week in BD!

 We have now been here a week!! It feels like it’s been a month. Such a barrage of new and strange things.

Today was our 2nd language class. It’s Saturday, so no school. Saturday here, is After our Day of Worship instead of before like we’re used to. Brianna said all 3 could come play while our teacher was here. Pannina arrived 15 min. Earlier than we were expecting so caught us at the breakfast table and still combing hairs🙃 Jared and Layton walked the children back to their house. Lonnie + I quickly cleared breakfast and we were ready to begin.

 We reviewed Les. 1 and filled out a short test on it. We both got a 100% but do not feel like we know Les. 1 100%😏 

We moved on to Les. 2 

Parts of the Day

Parts of the year

Expressions 

Numbers 6-12 

How to say time

We joined the girls and Jared’s at 11:00 for a trip to Farmgate market. We left the toddlers with their daddies and the rest of us jumped out. Now this is real 3rd world shopping.. vendors L i n i n g the streets. Miss Shana was pretty soon buying some hot street food that she shared with us🤗 Very tasty! A golden brown fried dough pocket with vegetables +? that had a most delightful flavor!! And then some little fried sweets for the children that made me think funnel cakes but with sugar water inside. Stepping inside we wended our way thru the dokans. The girls wanted a 3- pc kamis set after seeing Miss Shana’s😊 so we shopped for that, there’s only about 10 dokans offering fabric sets for those there so there’s really too many options to choose from but we did leave with 4 sets to take home, preshrink, and take to the tailor, found a few ornas.. also got a whole box of strawberries to split with Brianna like maybe 10? lbs. Met back up with the men and went to lunch at the Hotel ( this Hotel is one that gets used by our people when the guesthouse is full..) anyway on the 9th floor it’s a rooftop restaurant. Another side note: we stepped off the dirty street with shoulder to shoulder pedestrians, beggars at our feet, you name it,.. to a different class. Up the marble steps through a metal detector to the lobby of the hotel with uniformed agents and comfy leather furniture to sit in. Took the Nice elevator to the rooftop. Large glass windows all around, tables set elegantly with flower bouquets, red cloth napkins folded in the shape of a hat maybe😅, goblets, white dishes and silverware, etc with an outdoor balcony also complete with potted flowering plants/trees. They serve Chinese style food. We started off with spring rolls and egg soup. And spoiler alert Mom’s with toddlers🚨 these folks over here L o v e little children and will tote them around and entertain them/ pick flowers off the tree for them, etc. while you wait for your food😅 even the other diners want a chance to hold your white doll and get a picture with them! It seemed to take a really long time for our food to all come out but it was worth the wait! large plates of white rice and fried rice, crispy cashew chicken, a beef dish, and a garlic chicken, salted vegetables… 

Back down to the street where we got a caravan of rickshaws to haul us back to the clinic where Jared had parked the van. 2-3 to a rickshaw. Mine and Lonnie’s driver seemed to have a mind of his own and started taking off before the others were ready!! I could just imagine Lonnie and I with Annslie lost in this maze of concrete skyscrapers, cars, rickshaws, and Bengali speaking people!😱 In my moment of panic I pulled out a word from language class that morning “thamun!” (with much feeling😅) meaning “please stop” and the rest of the caravan was soon ready with Jared’s rickshaw leading the way! Down the highway 4-5? lanes of cars, buses, rickshaws, motorcycles, pedestrians.. it is a very vulnerable feeling!! And making a turn, with Lonnie and I squashed in there I sure hoped the sides didn’t give way! Makes me think these baskets with a bench seat on the the back of a bicycle could be better called “rickety”shaws! The up side to this mode of transportation is being in the open air and much closer/slower paced observation of the route.

Our 1st little thunder storm of the season this evening. Which also means power outages. And we learned our 1st Les. in that. We didn’t know we needed to make sure the A.C.s were all turned off after the 1st blink when the Pink City generator comes on. So the transfer switch here at our house blew. All our neighbors had power, but not us. So, Jared got a repair man out. After several tries and several trips back to our place, we finally had power to run the fans which kept it so much cooler. We found out real quick how fast the temperature rose without the fans!! At 10:00 the power was back on. 

Fri. 21 First Worship Day

 9:30 we walked over to Jared’s to catch a ride with them to church at  the clinic. 

Doyle’s and his youth boy brother Victor met us there also. We used that same front room that we used for Tues singing and Wed lunch. 

Started off with a couple songs. Jared read a portion of scripture and then Sister Sumita re- read it aloud in her Bangla Bible. Lonnie had an addition. By the way Naton, was not able to be there so no serious interpreting. Miriam showed up late. Sang some more but by that time I was out of the service dealing with Annslie. We hung around for maybe an hr? Miss Shana with Maddie, Jaira, + Amaryllis in tow went up the street for “biscuits “. They came back with several packages (think Oreo packages) of little cookies.. some with a choc or pineapple filling.

Meanwhile the 2 native Sisters were making cha, tea with powdered milk and sugar I suppose.

Then we headed to Pizza Hut, more American dining with a touch of Bangladesh. The children had cheese pizza, and Jared also ordered supreme and meat lovers, and wings. The wings ended up being spicier than usual, the meat lovers looked like supreme except it didn’t have chicken on it 😅, and my supreme had a strong taste every once in awhile that made me suspicious of anchovies, I’ll have to be checking in to that.

Then on to do some shopping since the city traffic isn’t quite as bad on their day of worship. We drove into a parking garage where we took a ticket like when you enter the airport parking at home. We went thru security like at the airport before we got on an elevator to take us up to the shopping center. Just a note here, we pretty much all beeped going thru the metal detector, but they never batted an eye, Jared said, cause we’re white..?..

The name of the store we were headed to is Uni-Mart, not so much unlike Walmart in America..

Their shopping carts are a bit smaller than back in America but between Brianna, Miss Shana, + I we had 3 shopping carts full of household items and groceries.

While we shopped, the men stayed with the children at a play area.

Jared dropped us ladies, children, and van load of merchandise off at our houses. Then him and Lonnie went to find a couple plastic dressers for the bedrooms. We are the 1st family to spend a couple months at this new guesthouse. So, running in to a few things that are still needed. We went with plastic for now, it is a decent option tho with all the termite trouble. They sell a nice variety of colors and painted? designs on the fronts.

We relaxed, study language a bit, made popcorn. They make a small pouch here with everything already in it! A handful of popcorn, oil, + salt! You just dump it in a kettle and pop it, next thing to microwave popcorn! Seemed a bit chewy/tough but it was “Sunday” evening and we had popcorn😜

Bout that time, Jared arrived with a rickshaw driver delivering the dressers they had purchased earlier.

Now! We have a place to organize/put away our clothes😊 and that is what we proceeded to do. Which involved completely rearranging the room to get everything to fit nicely!

Thurs. 20th meet fellow missionaries from Gopalgonj

 This morning Miss Shana was here at 7:30 again with school starting at 8:00. The times have not been precise yet , but somewhere there abouts.

  Laundry for me. With a little cleaning. Lonnie and the girls hadn’t scrubbed the railing when they cleaned the 2nd story patio.

From Lonnie’s notes: 

 After the girls went to school, Annslie and I went on a walk. We found where some men were working on a drive. We were asked to come sit a while. It was as very interesting to watch them re-lay the tiles. Came home and studied some more. Had lunch and then took Annslie on a walk till she went to sleep. Came home and put her down. Tried to memorize some more words 😛 and we are only on our first lesson 🤣. Went out for another walk and visited with some men fixing a large pipe. They were having a little trouble getting it lined up. I watched them struggle with it for a while. I just couldn’t help saying something and they asked, “You have idea?” It was fun to see the lights come on when they understood  the idea. At 6:30 we walked to Jared’s for supper. Doyle’s drove in to pick up his folks (Jake and Paula) from the airport (on Saturday) and Doyle’s brother Victor is here already. We had a nice evening learning to know each other and talking of things to come. Came home around 10:00 and crashed. 

In the afternoon, Maddie and Jaira played house on the rooftop, old towels, rags, plastic plates bowls cups chairs were hauled up there, palm fronds were used. Side note: the house is surrounded by trees, right next to it so easily accessible by the girls from the rooftop areas.

Then the girls turned the water on up there and “cleaned the floor” by sliding on their knees.

Another side note here: water is readily available and cheap. The houses are built with faucets and spigots Everywhere!! It can be a problem with Annslie around and random spigots within her reach🧐 thankfully the tiled floors all have drains but the floors are slippery when wet and we don’t always want her or possible rugs,etc. soaked😏

More on our evening:

 Jared’s house was freshly cleaned and supper was ready and waiting. So we visited in the living room til Doyle and Krystle Barkman arrived up from Gopalgonj. They are from Nova Scotia. And have 4 children. Amaryllis-7, Rafael-4, Jonas-2, Edward-almost 1. 

  Brianna and Miss Shana had a very satisfying meal prepared, homemade flour tortillas, taco meat, grated white cheese, “doctored up” cabbage, and fresh salsa, Krystle had brought a watermelon, dessert was ice cream with fried ice cream toppings. 

Wednesday, Feb. 19

 1st day of school with Miss Shana. The girls wore the dresses I’d sewed them for this last Christmas Party. Starting time 8:00.

  And 1st day of Language class for Lonnie + I. 

Jared bro’t Panini over(I’ll have to ask about the spelling of her name yet, but that’s what it sounds like). And he took Annslie home with him.

We are learning the language phonetically these 1st two months. So, no Chinese looking letters to deal with yet!

We started out by learning the vowel sounds. Only 7 sounds. I feel like with Spanish study in our history it helps here.

i = ē

e = ā

E = short e sound

a = ä

O = short o sound 

o = ō

u =  ū

Then went thru the consonant sounds,

Their consonant name sounds end in the O sound

English consonant names, for comparison, end with the ē sound as in bē, cē, dē, eē,…..tē, vē,zē.

So, they say, bO, dO, gO, jO, kO, lO, mO, nO, pO, rO, sO, tO

The CAPITAL consonant sounds you pronounce by putting your tongue on the roof of your mouth🤪

TO,DO,RO(rolled),SO(pronounced ShO)

Some basic conversation,

directions,

Numbers 1-5,

Units of money notes and coins,

Nominative singular and plural personal pronouns,

Some useful instructions,

And Days of The Week.

A lot to take in, but here we go!🤯 

Next class is Saturday. She recommends 2 hrs of study morning and evening! 

Class was over by 9:30. Lonnie and I walked over to Jared’s to check on Annslie. She was doing well by appearance and report. Back at the house we proceeded to try to commit some of the words/sentences to memory.

  At 12:30 the girls’ school day was over and we all walked back to Jared’s to go with them to lunch at the clinic. On the way, we stopped at Care Box (a little “hole in the wall” pharmacy) for some household items. Then Brianna and I walked down and bought fresh fruits and vegetables from the street vendors-Oranges, apples, bananas, grapes. Brianna told the men they could go on, we’d be coming. We walked on and bought hot peppers, cilantro, few cucumbers, broccoli, and cauliflower. Then we caught a rickshaw the rest of the way to the clinic. Brianna knew the driver personally, which was kind of amazing to me, considering the hundreds of rickshaws we see!!

 Sisters Josna and Sumita had the table laden. It was 1st Bangla curry meal here, absolutely delicious! Rice, curried drumsticks, 2 different cooked vegetable medleys, cucumber slices, limes, fries, + dal (a soupy lentil dish to eat with rice)! Needless to say, we left full!

I worked on soaking and rinsing all the veggies and fruits. And then we all went for an evening stroll.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/XwCLY59w5jq8irZVA?g_st=com.google.maps.preview.copy

It’s quite tropical with all the trees around the houses. Took note of a large blooming bougainvillea in the median. There’s always people out on the streets walking, children riding bike, etc.

At bedtime Lonnie did a room spray for mosquitoes. The girls have been getting quite bit up at night. Jaira’s the worst, looks like she’s got chicken pox😕 Brianna recommended the room spray, keep fan running, and a mosquito defense cream. Maddie has been quite miserable with itchy nose and ears and an itchy rash showed up also back of her knees, neck, inside of elbows, … when I asked Brianna about it, she assured me it was not strange to have itchiness and suggested allergy medicine and itch cream.

Tues. Feb. 18

 This morning I boiled eggs to go with our bagels. So far I’d only scrambled them and they tasted normal. But boiled, their dark yellow yolks had a”different whang “ as Lonnie put it and he and I didn’t need very many halves🙃 The girls didn’t seem to notice too much tho!

  Today was a laying low day for Lonnie. He was not feeling 100% with a belly ache.

We endeavored to put the school books back in order and get the current ones out.

Maddie and Jaira cleaned up after breakfast.

I got started on the laundry.

Today we used our rooftop lines for much faster drying. Just 2 flights of stairs, good exercise😉

After lunch Miss Shana came to get organized with the girls’ schoolbooks and prepare for starting school with them in the morning. She’s gonna have a couple days with just them to get the feel of it. Then Layton, Jared’s 1st grader will join. The classroom is a room in this guesthouse next to the dining room.

The girls spent the afternoon painting, reading, and answering Miss Shana’s questions about their school books.

We showered and walked over to Jared’s at 4:30. To ride with them to singing at The Clinic that Jared oversees. We took the high way/toll road but then turned into the depths of the city. Wow. What an experience. The last part of the way was driving thru an alley just a bit wider than the van with concrete buildings rising several stories high on either sides, dodging dogs, pedestrians, piles of concrete powder?, a man going thru a pile of trash, and a really narrow spot with a wire hanging down to the ground that caught on the mirror and Lonnie had to reach out his window to un hook. We wound our way back in the concrete structures til Jared backed into a spot and we all piled out and went in.

Two of our sisters, Josna and Sumita, work there and also live there. They cook for the patients. There was one patient tonight with her mom, a girl who’d had plastic surgery to repair her nose. Effects of cleft palette. We greeted the sisters, toured the clinic, then gathered in the front room. Sat in a circle of chairs and sang for a half hr or so. In Bangla🤪 but some were familiar tunes ☺️

Maybe halfway thru Miriam joined us. Another lady that works there that can speak pretty decent English.

After prayer, that Jared prayed in Bangla(with a cheat sheet😉) Miriam gave me a bouquet of flowers🥰, they sell them at intersections when the traffic is stopped. 

Then we headed to go find some supper. Traffic jams had us stopped several times and vendors came by offering all sorts. Strawberries were offered several times, they did look really good! Or a man would just put his hands around his face with his face against the window and try to see in thru the tinted windows! Annslie was quite unnerved by it all, “scary”. But then she was pointing and grinning! There next to us was a man on a motorcycle with helmet. I asked if if that looked like Papa? I was glad she could have a happy sight😌 in all the strangeness.

We made it to Herfeys for supper (it was right next to the coffee place we went to the other evening). This place is American fast food. We got hamburgers, chicken nuggets, and fries. Oh, and Miss Shana got fried chicken tenders. Jared’s got a couple cups of garlic mayo for dipping fries in along with ketchup. While we waited for our food, Jaira, Layton, Shania, and Annslie enjoyed the play area in the corner of the dining area. Of course the experience was complete with observing the Bengalis around us! Some very fancy ladies! And a unique thing to observe was how a whole party would migrate from table to table while they waited for their food. They were at their 3rd location in the restaurant by time we left! 

Home to bed.

Mon. Feb. 17

 This morning we streamed in to the communion and election service back home. Are hearts were there. And we were disappointed also in the unsuccessful election.

Excerpt from Lonnie’s notes:

The night went pretty well Annslie got restless around 1:30 and woke us up. I gave her some melatonin and she romped for another hour till I gave her some more. She finally went to sleep. I got up and called Verizon and canceled my plan. I took some melatonin and went back to bed. Had a pretty restless rest of the night. Finally Annslie got us up at 5:45. Sent her to the girls room.After breakfast Maddie and I took a broom, mop, shovel and squeegee to the roof top and spent a couple hours washing it off. While we were at it we washed the second story porch as well. Came in and had a lunch of tacos with some stuff pulled out of the freezer. Nette was pretty shot all day so the day got pretty long for us taking care of Annslie. She decided she wasn’t going to take a nap so she was really a handful. I took her on a walk out to the gate of Pink City. We finally gave her a shower around 5:30 and put her down for the night. My stomach is feeling a bit weak this evening. Hopefully it passes soon. The other girls hit the hay around 6:00. I’m pretty much done in so maybe that’s it for today.

On the lunch from the freezer:

For you folks back home, Do put your name down for that 1 or 2 items on the food shower Perfect Potluck. Over here, the 2 missionary wives and teacher have done the Whole food shower All By Themselves! 

Bag of homemade tortillas

Couple containers of taco meat

Grilled chicken

Stromboli x 2

Beef barbecoa meat

Raspberry cream cheese rolls

Muffins

Choc chip cookies

Protein bites

+ made sure the fridge was stocked with milk, juice, eggs, butter, yogurt, fruit/veggie pouches(for the toddler) fresh fruits and veggies.

And ALL the pantry staples and snacks!

Bless their hearts! Wow.

Our time versus CST

 Just a note on the time difference between here and home.

We are +12 hrs.

So, when it’s 7:00 P.M. at home CST

It’s 7:00 A.M. the next morning here..

Sunday Feb.16

 The whole household was awake by 3 A.M. thanks to jet lag. I pulled out beef sticks, sliced oranges apples and cheese, filled water thermoses and served breakfast in bed😜

Day of worship is Friday so..

After an official breakfast of teacher Shana’s homemade sourdough bagels toasted with butter.(Dee-licious!!) Lonnie and the girls worked on sweeping the carport out to the street. The carport is narrow, just wide enough for the white minivan and the floor and drive out to the street are designed brick pavers. I swept the ceiling and walls

Excerpt from Lonnie’s notes:

It was a very pleasant temperature. Washed the windshield of the van. Tried to communicate with a neighbor girl who wanted to clean for us. Finally resorted to her writing on a paper and me using google translate to read it. Then typing my answer into google translate and she would read it. The girls and I swept the drive. We had a lunch of quesadillas and took naps. Nette washed a couple of loads of laundry. Found out that our language teacher is to come Wednesday at 8:00 am to discuss our language study going forward. At 4:30 Jared’s took us driving just to see some of Dhaka. We stopped at WYNWood Coffee and sat and enjoyed some coffee and lemonades. They dropped us off at the house. We showered and went to bed around 7:30. 

On the laundry: 

  We do have a “normal” washing machine! .. just itty bitty like maybe 1/3 of the size back home! And then we hang all the laundry to dry. Today we used the lines that are strung in Jaira’s room.

On the outing with Jared’s on the town:

 We all piled into their gray minivan.

 The coffee shop was very modern in appearance inside. I loved the seating, a long lower glass topped table with couches on either side. Nicely accommodated both of our families and Miss Shana. The drinks were all delightful! The children got hot chocolates and I got a caramel latte…went with hot drinks cause it was cool in there with A.C.s running. Then Lonnie got a piña colada also which was very de-lish also😋

Arrival!! Sat. Feb 15

 Plane landed a little early 8:30 A.M. 

As we descended I was impressed with all the green as we just came from winter and trees with bare branches.

  We followed signs to Baggage Claim and we're met by a man holding a white paper that said Lonnie Koehn in large letters. What a welcome sight! This charming Bengali with a big smile was dressed like what you might see at an American wedding, dressed up in a gray suit coat and pants! His skin was a few shades darker than Lonnie’s but black hair in a slight comb over not outstanding, black beard, slightly smaller in build and height than Lonnie.

This man spoke English fluently, said his name was Jason! What a surprise! Didn’t look like a Jason 😅

He took our passports to start filling out some forms while we got in the line. We slowly inched forward. While Lonnie led the way with Annslie on his shoulders I stood at the back of my family giving them some space and keeping the press of people off of them. I confess, it fully irritated me how close the 3 men behind us pressed😖, they were not dark skinned, but were not speaking English..

And finally! After the man at the desk had entered all the info he needed and we all got our pictures taken, our friendly, smiling guide led us on to baggage claim. Definitely getting the 3rd world feel by now. A native looking lady beckoned me to sit beside her with all our backpacks and the girls, while Lonnie went with Jason to pull our totes and suitcases. 3 carts + 3 more men and our parade headed towards the doors that would take us out to the curb. As we walked down those tile floors I noticed a smell that made me think of the sale barn back home. That place has good memories for me so the smell was not overly obnoxious. 

  As we stepped outdoors we were pleasantly surprised by the balmy feel to the air! Not hot or cold😌. The next impression was the WALL of dark skinned people being held back by a rope. We continued walking and soon needed to enter that wall of people and start weaving our way thru til we stopped at the curb to wait for our ride. While we waited an ornately clad native lady asked Maddie if she could have her picture with her! We’d heard how they love to take selfies with Americans. Maddie declined. Traffic was congested so it was taking Jared, the Dhaka missionary, awhile to make his way to the curb. Eventually the gray mini van with a white man and boy in the front seats pulled up to the curb and our guide and his helper started loading the totes and suitcases. For those that saw the amount we took with us,…🫣 they will find it amazing to note that ALL of the totes, suitcases, + backpacks minus my diaper bag went into the minivan! An Uber was hired for our family. 

And we started working/nosing our way thru the beeping mass with our Jason guide walking just ahead, working to help part a way for us. Once we got out of the airport vicinity onto a wide highway it cleared out a lot but Maddie took note that the wide highway (think 5?lanes) had no lines! Vehicles just kind of wove between and around each other. Eventually the Highway did have lines but couldn’t tell that they were used so much.. 

  Maddie also commented on all the palm trees. Lonnie said it made him think southern CA. There’s even blooming oleanders in the median☺️ along with other bushes and trees that I don’t know the name of. 

Another aspect to all this vegetation is it is all quite dusty! As they have not had rain since November!

It was not a long drive to our new home for the next 2 months. And we were soon turning off the Highway onto a dusty, bumpy rode lined with dokans and just like that we recognized the entrance to Pink City Residential Area that we had looked up on Google maps back home. It definitely was a different feel to drive in on Uber versus scrolling on the phone screen!

Jared’s wife Brianna was just walking over when we arrived! We finally got to meet after WhatsApping since October🤗

We took all the luggage in and were given a tour with instructions and explanations in each room. Maybe I’ll tell about this guest house sometime. 

Then we went over to Jared’s for lunch,where we met teacher Shana Brubaker and Jared’s toddler Shania. Good food. Jared helped Lonnie with his phone and other matters of initiation while us ladies cleaned up lunch then migrated to the living room. Our girls and Jared’s Layton 7 and Shania almost 2 were busy playing outside. A few of the neighbor children showed up also. After a bit Jared and Lonnie joined us ladies. Lonnie was “out” bout as soon as he sat in the comfy chair and the conversation was swirling around him. When he stirred after a bit, I told him we may as well go to the house. So we rounded the children up and walked home.

Crashed for a couple hours. Then Lonnie and I worked on getting the totes out of the living room, all the school books into the classroom, hung up dresses and shirts. But there are no dressers yet so can’t really get too organized, but it could be better organized and maybe we’ll get to that here in the next couple days. They’re talking of shopping for dressers Friday..

Feb 14 Doha, Qatar

 5:20 P.M. - 1:20 A.M. Feb. 15

When we landed we walked into a concourse that was not very busy but Very nice, spacious,etc

Thru a checkpoint where I was instructed to take a drink from Maddie’s water thermos to prove its soundness. We sat down in some chairs to rest a bit and get our bearings. We weren’t able to go find our gate yet because of the length of our layover it wasn’t established yet(8 hrs). Lonnie was dealing with some serious fatigue by this time so he grabbed a back pack for a pillow and proceeded to lay on the floor. A veiled lady sitting at a desk nearby soon got up and let us know that there are places to lay down but this was not one of them and security would not allow this. So we gathered our backpacks and headed to find a lounge that we’d been informed of. At the bottom of the escalator were shopping carts to use in the sprawling shopping center so we loaded all our backpacks and car seat on one which made everybody very happy to be relieved of their burdens😌 

We went in search of a lounge. At the bottom of an escalator a lady was answering questions and giving info so we got in line also. The first question was how long til your flight? You could only use the lounge if you had 6 hrs at least! And the price is $64/adult and a lesser price for the girls. We decided to go check it out. We got in another line when we got out of the elevator. At the desk they told us the family areas are a 1st come, 1st serve and they were pretty busy. Invited us to go check it out before we made our decision which we really appreciated! And yes, the little rooms were occupied and the lounge areas were pretty full. So the remaining question was if we want to spend that kind of money on a shower. I decided I didn’t feel too bad and my hair still looked decent😉. Lonnie said a sink in a bathroom would work just fine to take care of his greasy hair. So we headed back downstairs. We walked by a large playground which was luring the girls. Adjoining was a Quiet Room with one reclining chair left. I told Lonnie he better grab it while it was available! The girls hit the playground and I found a comfy chair in a small circular place, called a Television Area, with a 4?ft wall where I could keep my eyes on the girls. Annslie and I stayed there till her melatonin wore off. 

  There was an African American looking couple in there also. The man was in obvious pain so I offered pain reliever. The lady says ear? pointing to her ear and I said yes, for pain. They wanted to know how many to take and expressed their gratitude..

This playground was interesting/unique in its playground equipment. Put “Doha airport playground” in google maps to see pictures of the large bronze playground equipment in the shape of children!!

A couple hours later we freshened up. The girls n I used a “family” room next to the restrooms where we changed clothes and combed hairs. Then off to the food court for some supper. Hamburgers from Giraffes. Our 3 hamburger meals bill was $10 less in Qatar than Chicago and just as good!😋 we also splurged at Costa Coffee on some cold blended goodness. Small size(but they were a sufficient size) Caramel frappé, strawberry crème, and mango/? for a total of $30😳 

Btw the prices were all in Qatar currency on the menus but we paid with our credit card in American currency.

  Time to board, our gate was not far away and I thought they had a very nice system for boarding! The seating was set up in zones so we found our zone 3 and waited for our zone to be called. One of the attendants saw our car seat and said we better check to see if it would fit in their seats. I wasn’t worried because it had fit everywhere else and even the cramped quarters of the “puddle jumper” from Nashville-Chicago. But she got us in line ahead of schedule which we sure didn’t mind😉 

Once again we walked past the elite First Class… a bouquet of red roses on the counter there. 

We found our seats. Next to a gentleman that Annslie studied a bit, then pointed and asked “Papa?” 😅 But, yes, he was very similar dressed in his gray suit like he would be for church. His face color was a wee darker and slimmer, his white beard a tiny bit longer maybe, and just slightly less rotund. Thankfully Maddie was between him n us cause I think Annslie would’ve liked to sit in his lap!

This 5 hr flight was exciting in that it was our last link til we hit Bangladesh soil! Lonnie and the girls slept almost the whole flight! Didn’t even wake for a meal or beverages offered!