Tues 18 1st family outing

Sometime after our weekly shopping trip, we planned a an early birthday party for the 3 youngest of each of the families on the field. 2 of them share a birthday and the other one is 4 days later! What a coincidence! We needed to celebrate! Since Doyle’s were in the city this would be a good week. I agreed to make the cake for the occasion. Thus, a trip to the store for cake mixes, candles, etc. 

Which became our 1st single family outing since we arrived in Bangladesh😊(just over a month!) Definitely  an occasion! We put Annslie’s car seat in our white minivan with leather seats. Filled our water thermoses. Gathered snack bag (never know how long an outing will end up, think traffic holdups..always want to be prepared), UniMart bags(they provide burlap/cloth bags for $taka so if they get left at home, you have to buy more at checkout😏), mosquito zapper (for the swarm in the van). And we were off! Sitting in the front seat next to Lonnie it felt a bit vulnerable with those big clear windows 😅. Annslie seemed to enjoy being back in her car seat for the 1st time in a month😄(and the rest of us for sure enjoyed it😜)

We  tho’t the Wholesale Club in Jamuna Park would be a good option for a couple different reasons but we ended up driving 20 min further to UniMart where we were able to find the groceries we were after!

Oh, yes.. and Lonnie also learned that it’s best to back into the parking spot in those parking garages.. after pulling in, and the low bumper cacthing the parking curb. An observing Bengali, with hand motions, advised us to reverse and then stayed there til we got out and saw the damage. Lonnie is pretty sure that scrub on the bumper was already there tho..🤷🏼‍♀️

 Our UniMart stop turned out to be quite the experience due to being there over 6:00 when the natives break their fast of the day, now during the month of Ramadan, by eating Iftar. I was in the dairy section when I noticed one of the store personnel had spread pcs of cardboard right there in the aisle and was sitting cross legged there with a tub with food on it!? I did not catch on right away what was going on.. a bit later going down another aisle there at the end was a group gathered around their tub of Iftar. We saw several other groups gathered at the end of aisles. 

We were havin a bit of a time finding what we were looking for but not one of those, usually ever present personnel, was available! So we browsed for a bit til we saw personnel up and about but then they were all on a mission-to go wash their hand. We did eventually get some help. 

Then turned toward home and Lonnie got his 1st experience with Dhaka night driving.!.?.!!.. all the pedestrians, rickshaws, cngs, motorcycles just that much harder to be aware of🤔.