Tues. April 29 👗 👗

 Maddie woke up itchy all over again and welts wherever she scratched. She was too distracted by the itchiness to go to school so went back to bed while we had language class. Then she soothed the itchiness with ice packs and putting her hands in a bowl of ice water. Before lunch Lonnie went to find some liquid Benadryl at the dokan just outside Pink City. Then Maddie slept under the influence. Woke her up by 4:00 with the Benadryl having made a wonderful difference!! We went with Jared’s to sing at the clinic and Herfy’s for supper. 

Also, Shana and I picked up our dresses from the tailor. I knew it would be a small miracle if I wouldn’t need to alter but was disappointed that they were not even wearable! The bodice and sleeves are too tight. The seams are 1”+ deep so will be able to let out. With a bit of altering, the $6 a dress tailor job should not be in vain🙃

Lonnie and I worked on our Les. 15(Book 2) language test for tomorrow.

-Rewriting Bangla sentences in passive tense

-Finishing Bangla sentences with relative pronouns

-Rewriting Bangla sentences into English 

-Rewriting Bangla sentences with P.A.P.(past active participle)

-Making positive Bangla sentences negative

Mon. April 28

 Language class and school again although Maddie wasn’t up to school 1st thing, but by 9:45 she joined them. (On top of the bug that’s been lingering Maddie woke up with hives? this morning! Itchy all over and wherever she scratches it turns into a welt!

Today’s lesson was a review of P.A.P. (past active participle… having done something) eg. Having cleaned the house, I made supper. So it was a nice easy lesson with only 6 sentences to come up with for homework  and then of course learn the new vocabulary words and practice the numbers by 5’s to 100.

Lonnie helped me make tortillas so I could make enchiladas for lunch. After lunch Maddie crashed after taking Benadryl. Lonnie and Jaira helped me take care of a counter loaded with dishes. Then I mixed up a triple batch of banana muffins with some bananas that have been attracting my attention for the last couple days.

Lonnie’s friend Habib came to install the new transfer switch in the electrical box.

We had a nice thunderstorm come thru and cool things off. It was right chilly especially with the dampness of the rain. It was down to 76*. Turned the heater on in the van, when we went for supper, to take care of my goosebumps.

Annslie was begging for French fries again. And after an afternoon spent in the kitchen I was game to go find ready made food and with Annslie she has still not been eating much to speak of but gets hungry for French fries. She was asking for pizza also🙃 So we ran up to Herfy’s for more spicy crispy fried chicken wraps for Lonnie and I and chicken nuggets and fries for the girls. I know 💭 , but my does it hit the spot these days. And, when you come to visit, I’ll be glad to take you for a chicken wrap😉 they come with a slice of fresh bell pepper, thinnest sliver of red onion, lettuce, a slice of American cheese and some mayo🤤

Sun April 27

 Lonnie and I were up with Annslie quite awhile around daybreak, Mom n law sent us a drink recipe to try that a person doesn’t throw back up. 

School and language class are canceled for the day to give our family a little more time to recuperate. Jaira is feeling better today so took up post on a chair in the living room next to Maddie on the couch and read Boxcar children aloud. Annslie is chipper as can be and I don’t know how!? Anyway, so some of us hadn’t gotten ready for the day yet and were just taking it real easy when we hear a man’s voice?! Lo and behold, our rickshawala friend has slid the dining room window open (there’s bars on all the windows) and is trying to get our attention! So Lonnie goes to the door and this man proceeds to walk right in! He wants to see the Bideshi’s basha(house)! Lonnie told him the girls were oshusto (sick) and he soon left and wanted Lonnie to go with him. I wish we’d been up to giving him an experience like he’d given Lonnie the day before… inviting him in and serving some Coke and “biscuits”.

He told Lonnie yesterday that he had no taka(money) but would not let Lonnie pay for the ride he’d given him! And when he was here today, he grabbed the broom and swept the driveway, then the hose and washed the dirt off the bushes next to the drive. He wanted to wash our van, “moyla”(dirty)!

So, a couple days ago Lonnie gave his friend Habib 3,000 taka($30 USD) for a transfer switch that we needed and Habib was gonna have his friend get it for us. Well, the part still wasn’t right. So Lonnie told Habib he’d take him to wherever the part was that is needed. When Habib showed up at the appointed time he had his brother with him also. “Because” he says, “of the times we’re in. With Lonnie being from America and Trump’s recent declaration of ‘No more American aid in Bangladesh’.” They drove about an hour south for the part. And encountered some tight traffic and a little drama. At one point in the tight traffic there was a man directing, Lonnie was turning and had a motorcycle right next to him. The director was motorcyclist to go and motioning for Lonnie to come. So Lonnie was concentrating on what the man directing traffic was motioning him to do and caught the motorcycle on the passenger side door and started tipping it over, the driver bailed, but there were many helping hands to hold the motorcycle up and hold the angry driver back while Habib told Lonnie to “Go!Go!”  He shouldn’t stay there, it wouldn’t be good. Lonnie was glad to have Habib with him!

Oh, and also worthy of mention, a bright spot, was that when Lonnie went to pay for the part, Habib says, “I pay the 1st 3,000 taka since I never got your money back to you from the other day.”😊 Lonnie didn’t know if he was remembering or not or if he would make it right. 

Naton(interpreter) came for the eve.He brought fuska, visited, we pulled out a few snacks, had a sweet iced tea making demonstration and then pulled out the Skyjo cards and played Golf. An enjoyable evening😊

Sat. April 26

A late breakfast of biscuits, gravy, and boiled eggs.

We had just got the “amen” said when Annslie 🤮🤦🏼‍♀️

We got her and area cleaned up and then only those with the toughest constitutions sat back down to have breakfast..

We were happy to see Lucky show up(hadn’t heard if she was gonna come today) to clean the house, cause we were all not feeling very energetic!

But, then we do feel like we’re kind’ve in the way here at the house and Annslie was begging to “walk on the wode”… her daily, often several times of the day, request. She rides on her trike that she can’t quite reach the pedals yet, but has a handle up the back that we can push her. We ambled down to the gates and back then decided to go for a little drive. Jared had been telling Lonnie that North of Dhaka there were less big buildings/more village-y so we went to sight see.

Lonnie went driving with his rickshawala friend, who took him on a Real tour!… out to the riverside where there’s a park with all kinds of rides-Ferris wheel,etc,etc and more streetside places to eat than you can count all lined up, one after another, along the river with their dining space looking out over the river and their cooks on the roadside squatting in front of their fires with the kettles boiling, then on to the rickshawala’s own 2 room house where he was invited in. Just pause a moment, and remember that this rickshaw driver speaks zero English! And doesn’t do google translate. It seems like he has a very limited Bangla vocabulary🤔?! He uses “bhalo”(good) for many instances! This man’s wife was home there with his 3 girls… this man was pretty pleased that him and Lonnie both have 3 girls😉 his oldest a teenager, an 11 yr old and 1 yr old. They served Lonnie Coke in a Coke glass and when Lonnie told him he drinks out of a glass exactly like this one in his America home, he was pretty pleased and had to tell his wife☺️.

Later in the evening, Lonnie took us driving where the rickshawala had taken him earlier and then on to Herfy’s, where we got the girls chicken nuggets and fries. We were very happy that Annslie was finally eating! But she must’ve overdone it and didn’t keep it down😔

Jared and Brianna have been doing what they can to help us along and take care of us with our sickies. They brought Imodium, Gatorade powder, and Sprite.

Fri April 25 Worship Day

 We are all feeling only about half speed at this house with head colds. Annslie hasn’t eaten much to speak of for several days now, I’m afraid she’s losing the little bit of chub she had to her😕 we all took a dose of dewormer yesterday, just in case that’s what was causing some of the symptoms most of us were having..

Brianna stayed home with Shania who was not feeling well and the rest of us went to church. It was a cooker today🥵 just an overhead fan. And sitting right out the door with Annslie in the breezeway keeping her quiet, we were thankful for the breezes that would come along..

To a different Chef’s Table than last week. 2 floors of a variety of places to choose from, everything from Italian, sushi, American, waffles, Bengali, icecream,.. A very relaxing atmosphere… we lingered over lunch but the girls were not hardly touching their food. This bug that we’ve been battling takes your appetite away… we got chicken fettuccine, the men got sushi.

Down stairs to shop UniMart. I’d forgotten my list at home but managed to pick up most everything that I was needing!

After siestas, we made quesadillas. Then went for a walk out and behind Pink City circling around by the canal/highway front. We were glad we’d chosen the path on the side of the canal furthest from the highway when we saw the traffic all backed up! 

Wed. 23 💨

 Right after language class, Lonnie left with Jared to go see about renewing his visa. I did laundry and made chicken ands rice cass. I did hang all 3 loads on the rooftop lines but it was So Windy it was a real fight to get them hung up and then stay there! I’m not used to that kind of breezes! It was sunny and Hot also!

Lonnie got his friend Habib (an electrician that works for Pink City) to come check into our transfer switch that keeps blowing. It is a switch that’s for automatically switching to power coming from the Pink City generator when the electricity goes off. We’ve just been switching it manually for most of the time we’ve been here. And this morning the power went off and on at least 5 times😏

Went for another evening stroll with the family along the canal. This time it wasn’t dusk yet and we attracted much more attention🧐

Worked on vocabulary flashcards this evening.

Tues 22

 Several at the Regher household were sick so school was canceled and the girls had the day off. They were supposed to watch Annslie and be quiet during our language class but let’s just say having them in school and Annslie at Brianna’s normally is a very good working situation for our class time😉

Lonnie went to find one of his friends that was suppose to be back in Pink City today. He couldn’t locate him so stopped in at an elder gentleman’s place that was out painting at his easel. I took Annslie over there to hang out with them also. They had cha and Annslie came home with some fun “new” toys.

In the evening at dusk, we went for a walk out of Pink City along the canal that runs next to the highway. There is a nice stamped concrete walkway on both sides so it makes for a nice circle😌

Sun. 20 Easter ✝️

 The children had school.

Couple loads laundry.

Jared had an appt. at Evercare, Lonnie and I rode along and got a “look-see” 👀 of the place. No traffic is allowed in and out of Pink City yet with the new concrete road they’ve poured in front the gates. We took CNG there and back.

Bought 2 flats(5doz.) eggs and a kg of potatoes here at the dokans.

6:30 Easter supper at Jared’s. I took my beef roast, gravy, butterhorns, and our painted eggs. Brianna and Miss Shana had made mashed potatoes, green bean cass., baked apples, deviled eggs and cream puffs! Absolutely delicious!! This was my family’s 1st “American Sunday Dinner” feast since we got over here! It was Very Much enjoyed, to say the least! Dishes that “turn out” are always a small miracle and here on the other side of the world it’s even more of a miracle!😜

After supper, Jared surprised us and announced that he was gonna wash the dishes!🥳Go Jared!👏🏼  The basket of painted eggs kept the children occupied, hiding and finding several times.

Sat. 19 cleaning •baking •painting

 Lucky could not come clean today so Lonnie and the girls worked on sweeping and mopping the whole house, both floors. I got a batch of sweet roll dough going and started scrubbing the bathrooms. 

We shared a pan of cinn rolls in trade for the crockpot and got the roast going before we went to bed.

In the evening, we boiled a doz. eggs and tried our hand at painting them 🎨 🖌️ 🥚 

Fri. 18h Worship Day

 We loaded up with Jared’s and drove out to the Pink City gates, only to find out they weren’t opening them, because they’re concreting the road that goes past there and currently had a huge pc of equipment sitting right in the path out of Pink City🧐 So we drive back to Jared’s and decided we’d walk out and catch a ride to the clinic. We had walked about halfway back to the gates when we saw cars coming and going thru🤦🏼‍♀️ So Jared went back to get the van and we continued our walk to the gate. 

  Miss Shana brought maple twists along for after church snack😋

Went to Chef’s Table for lunch, which is a food court on 3rd floor with a large selection of restaurants to choose from, a playground for the children to play in,…  Brianna took the children to the playground while we did a tour of the floor and ordered our food. This is another one of those favorite places for white people 😉 talked to an older white gentleman by the name of Craig. He lived in BD for 34 yrs, but now he’s back in America in North Carolina. He was back here visiting and taking his guard, that had been with him for 14 yrs, out for lunch😊 He knew a lot of us Mennonites, remembered Flynn & LeAnne, and told of some good places to eat in Khulna😊

We ordered tacos from Cilantros, Dominos for the girls, and smoothies from a coffee shop.

Took the elevator down to UniMart to get our groceries for the week and the children, once again occupied their time while we shopped, by playing in the playground on that floor😌

When we got back to the Pink City gates we were not able to drive in with it all formed up for concrete. Lonnie walked in to get our van and bring it up to the gates inside and we pulled alongside across from the gate and made a relay across the formed up lane to transfer all our groceries to the other side! 

Thurs 17th 🧣

 One of Ms. Paninna’s other students is back in the country so Thurs and Mon we start class at noon.

Lonnie and I did some studying and took a walk. I made grilled cheese sand., veggies and dip, fruit bowl, and a pitcher of sweet tea for lunch. Good drink is pretty important to have around while you’re having class or doing homework😉 The other day when we were at Dedars we happened upon a very special find.. Red Bull💫🤩 

  When we stepped outside today, there was a coolness to the air after the rain front that came thru yesterday! It made me think a sweater could feel good! It was in the 70s versus the 90s we’ve been having😊

 After a light supper we went for a walk. The neighborhood boys were out in the Main Street by Jared’s house playing futbol(soccer). We walked out the Pink City gates where the street was very mucky! And they have the traffic (mostly big dump trucks,easy bikes, and motorcycles) narrowed down to one lane with forms up to pour concrete.🤗 we bought bananas and headed home. Darkness had fallen…

Wed. 16th 🌧️

 Laundry

Language class

Lunch at the clinic.. shrimp curry this time! And the stir fry veggies had lots of okra.

Brianna went with me to the tailor to see about getting 2 dresses sewed. Hopefully, they are a good fit! They’ll be ready for pickup the 29th..

Traffic was being detoured so we ended up going a different way home. By time we got home, huge raindrops were beginning to fall. Jaira took it upon herself to go get the last load of laundry off the rooftop lines and hang them up inside. She got fully soaked! 🌧️ We enjoyed the rest of the afternoon/evening inside with the rain pouring, intermittent power, popcorn, Lonnie reading aloud to the girls. It was cozy😌

Tues 15th 2 months in BD! 🇧🇩

  Singing in the eve at the clinic with Josna and Sumita. Brianna and Miss Shana went to the tailor to drop off several pcs of fabric to be sewn for Miss Shana’s next school year in America. Josna’s little sister showed up just as we were ready for closing prayer. On our fellow missionary’s prayer cheat sheet, he started reading the lunch prayer, then caught himself and we all had a good laugh😅 Josna’s little sister is married here in Dhaka and does hair and makeup.

To The Green Lounge on the 13th floor again. The wait for the food was plenty long and the children had a bit of a time😏

Ran by Swapnos(grocery store) on the ground floor and the book store on 1st.

Mon. 14 Happy New Year’s Day!(BD)🥳

 Suvo nObo bOcho!

We had language class to the beat of the music just down the street where Pink City has set up a large bamboo framework and covered it with fabric. We went and checked it out after class. They have a long covered table set up on stage complete with water bottles for the speakers. Behind hangs a large banner:

      PINK CITY ANNUAL MEETING 

They have food and drink dispensers

And are meeting with all the Pink City home owners.

Then from 4:00-10:00 it will be open to everybody.

We showed up later in the afternoon and enjoyed shopping from the vendors… sheets to make into dresses-hopefully they won’t be too heavy/hot, a new bed cover with matching pillow covers, Maddie chose one of the clay cup n saucers, and we also enjoyed the food booths!… chatpati, Singara, and I forget the name of the rice dish that’s cooked with beef and has a delicious flavor!, miSti balls, and one of Lonnie’s friends bought him a sleeve of an assorted mixture of fried strips of crunchy snacks… one reminded me of the German rol kuken that is traditionally eaten with watermelon and the others were sweet varieties..

I was glad for our neighbor girl, Alishbah, that could translate for me when people would try to talk to us! Lots of fancy Saris 🥻 

Our youth girl enjoyed the evening with some of the locals her age.. they asked her many questions!.. we know other Christians but they don’t wear (the covering) like you do? You want to go to Australia, go then!, etc. etc.

Sun April 13

 Language at 10:30.

Studied till class time. Lonnie took Annslie on a walk then left her with Brianna.

Our homework assignment was to write sentences with the question words. We’ve learned 25 btw!😳 “And use different tenses.” 

Present, present perfect, present continuous, past  perfect, past continuous, future. And so many rules and exceptions to remember🤯

In the eve we walked out the Pink City gates in search of some specific vegetables. Not finding, we caught easy bike to Dumni and shopped the busy crowded streetside dokans coming away bags of fruits and veggies! Then caught easy bike back to Pink City. Next the process of getting all the produce washed and rinsed.

Heated up leftovers for a quick supper.

Sat. April 12 Onek bEsto(very busy)

 Don’t ask me what we were so busy with!?

Maybe it was because, by the time we sat down to the breakfast table, we only had 30 min till Lucky arrived to clean. And there was much to be accomplished by then!.. laundry to taken off the drying racks so she could clean the floors properly, breakfast to be cleaned up, bedrooms tidied, etc.

I did a couple loads of laundry. Lonnie washed the van and sprayed off the driveway. I had Lucky clean a few extras. Lonnie disappeared into the classroom to study Les 1-4 of Book 2 for Les. 5 test. I got lunch going. The girls pulled out the Legos and played with them most of the day. In the afternoon, Alishbah came by with her little 1 yr old sister Aleena. It had been awhile since we’d seen them. She said her Dad and brother Arab were gone taking part in the Palestine protest. Jared’s were on their way home from Raj and got stuck for hours in the protest traffic😏.

I’m Lonnie and I finished our minimal (like we could study for hours to know our material better) studying and endeavored to take our test, Paninna always tells us we can do it if we have time, you don’t have to, but if you do, then we can do more studying during class…

Fri April 11 worship day and shopping

 Jared’s left this morning to go visit their outpost,Raj(is the shortened version of the place name). A 5 hr drive! So our family went to the clinic for church with the Sisters. Josna‘s cousin was there also and Naton interpreting. 

We needed more coffee at the guesthouse, so we went to North End for lunch also. When we’d been in Khulna with Doyle’s, Krystal was telling me about Dedars and Dhalis being stores that carry imported groceries also and sometimes having specific, hard to find groceries like choc chips and marshmallows. So we looked up those stores. Dedars was open and we found some of the things on our list for the day. The toddler was getting quite unmanageable so we decided to go home and finish shopping after she had a good nap.

So, back out in the evening, stopping for fuel and then UniMart by the airport. By time we pulled out of the parking garage it was dark and raining and the roads were choked with traffic😣 We made our way slowly and carefully back to Pink City.

The day was not dull… when we pulled into the parking space at the shopping plaza where Dedars is located, there was a loud explosion not far away and we could see a cloud of smoke at the top of a high rise building that looked to be under construction. This was new territory for us so we stayed put in the vehicle a bit to make sure the “coast was clear” . It looked like the general populace was headed that way to check the situation out so we soon headed in to shop.

Later in the eve while we were shopping in UniMart … we started hearing this sound . Lonnie comments that it sounds like a cat! Come to find out a Bengali family-fellow shoppers, had a 5? Yr old daughter that was really enjoying meowing quite loudly and very realistically..🤔 after a bit one of the men behind the meat counter tried out a “meow” and then of course Lonnie couldn’t help himself and was meowing too 🤦🏼‍♀️ everybody was getting their jollies out of it😅

Thurs April 10

A couple power outages this afternoon

Washed a couple pcs of fabric

Mixed up a batch of bread

Little thunderstorm came thru

The girls played pioneer (Ingalls inspired era) outside this afternoon

Lonnie read most of King Solomon’s Mines after language homework..

Wed. April 9

 Back to life in Pink City with school for the girls and language class for us. We opted to let Annslie sleep in this morning and she didn’t wake til after Paninna was gone and we’d made good progress on our homework , and the school children were already back in after 1st recess! (10:30! or so).

We left at 11:30 cause Shana needed to go fabric shopping at Farmgate. She wants to get her school sewing for next year done here before she goes home this summer. That was fun to go again, I found several pcs also. Caught rickshaws back to the clinic. And enjoyed Josna and Sumita’s cooking again😊 chicken curry and the usual fare of rice mixed veggie stir fry, limes, cucs, dhal, and the specialty item today was mashed potato balls with pcs of fish in them😊. 

The children had school to finish up after we got back and then after Miss Shana’s work was done the girls got their promised scooty rides🤗

We walked to the dokans after dark for fresh veggies, bananas, and eggs. The street was buzzing with activity.. 

Tues. April 8 back to Dhaka

 The men were able to finish up business at the Khulna bank this morning, Thanks to receiving the final documents needed that Jared had quickly sent by courier from Dhaka. 

Krystal and I worked on packing and wrapping things up, doing some laundry. Heated up the rest of the Bangla noodles and added more scrambled eggs for a quick lunch when the men got back. 

We got left by12:40.

The mela was all cleaned up from the activities the day before and was just a large grassy area again littered with trash..

The traveling was great!! Making it back to Pink City in 3 hrs 40 min!!🤗…no stops again..

My girls were anxious to see Jared’s crew again and Jaira just couldn’t help herself, she went out to the Main Street and came back reporting that Jared’s van was at home😊 …Tues. evening is Singing at the clinic, unless something comes up.

Mon April 7

The men went back to the Gopalgonj bank today, and hour away, to take care of business over there.

The children pulled out the water hose again and played in that for a long time till TulSi let us know that the neighbors were saying the water was running on their property. So we had them fill up the pool again to keep the water contained.

Pulled out leftover spaghetti for lunch when the men got back.

Doyle took our family to show us a few things like the local post office while his family napped. On the other side of the street in a large grassy area a Mela was being set up.. food vendors, carousels, balloons, cotton candy, etc, etc. ,..

Then we all loaded up and went to the bOro bazaar. A large market encompassing many streets along a river. A large fabric area that I’m looking forward to spending some time at, and then a little of most everything else that one can think of! Stopped and bought some umbrellas, a brass dokan looked like a promising place to drop some taka someday, then down the gangplank at the rivers edge where boats were being loaded. Burly men carrying heavy loads on their heads down the steep bank and gangplank to the boats. Produce, dry goods, 50 gal. drums were also being rolled on.

One hilarious aspect as the Barkman/Koehn tribe wended their way down the streets, thru the market, mostly single file, you’d hear- “Ek, duy, tin, car, pac, choy, Sat, at, nOy, dOS, Egaro.” or even in English sometimes! I guess we were a fairly impressive sight-bedeshis with a serious trail of little people-7 children between the ages of 10 and 1..

As we left, we found ourselves in a real traffic jam for awhile.. saw lines of protestors headed somewhere.?. Eventually we pulled off the street to go find us some supper. Surprise! They took us to a back room that had air conditioning and its own set of sinks and bathrooms! A perfect place to have the children contained but not stuck in a chair disturbing other diners🤗

We came back past the mela that was going strong and Packed with people!!

Sun. April 6

 The men took Raf with them on their business run to the Khulna bank. It was an all day affair and they were even served lunch!

At the house.. Dipti, the maid, made us noodles for lunch.. my girls and I were curious observers as she used her floor knife to cut up okra and peel and slice and dice carrots and potatoes in a very efficient manner! Sitting there on the floor with the curved blade in front of her she had both hands to wield those vegetables.. so much faster than me with my peeler, paring knife, Vidalia chopper, and/or pampered chef slicer!… Americans. And our cabinets loaded to the hilt with many kitchen gadgets and accessories… and this simple maid in the depths of Bangladesh has minimalism perfected💫

  The children pulled out the large kiddie pool and stayed cool and entertained for hours! Set up in the carport. 

Side note on the car port: it is about 2 foot high with a solid ramp up to it. Sized for a vehicle, and has a high ceilinged roof. That ramp adds a nice dimension for children playing on trikes, scooters, bikes, rip sticks and even “sledding”..one afternoon with water running down the ramp and a child sitting on the front door mat with another child pulling! 💦 🤸🏼‍♂️

The men didn’t get home till bout 4:30

Krystal and I went for a walk back in the village. We stopped in at Shunil’s(our night guard of 18 yrs). His wife is no longer living but his family lives with him there. His daughter in law that makes and decorates cakes met us there in the yard as we walked up. She is beautiful!🥰 and was very happy to see us and of course right away they were bringing chairs out and would’ve proceeded to make ca and who knows what else but we said we’d just come by to say “Hi”. Our children were at home. Sumitha’s(sp?) Saris were hanging on the line there and she told us about the Hindu festival that was going on. A Spring celebration, showing us which fancy Sari she had worn last night, which one she would wear tonight and the Sari for tomorrow night! She was concerned about the thunder we were hearing tho, and was sure hoping it wouldn’t interfere with the festivities planned!

  Doyle’s took us into Khulna to a roadside place for fuska😊 they also ordered chat pati? referring to it as soup but it reminded me a lot of our stack ups back home. Not super soupy, a very delicious blend of flavors with cilantro and chick peas and the texture complete with thin crispy fried tortillas crunched over the top 😊 They’d ordered light spice but was still bordering by too spicy for me🤔 It didn’t take long to know know this would be a dish I would be coming back for😋

We had got good and started with our meal when the 1st huge splats of rain fell! It escalated very quickly but we just as quickly, with the help of those serving, herded our families and food under the awning. We finished up our supper and by that time the water was ponding up under the awning also! So we jammed up into the small eating area with the other diners. Bought icecreams to keep the children occupied while we waited for the deluge to subside a bit. Which it did before long and we could slosh our way to the van. “Keep your wet, muddy shoes on the floor, Littles!!”

Sat. 5th Tala outpost

 Left the house at 8:00. Stopped for dim and ruti(scrambled eggs with or without peppers and onions, fry bread, with dhal(lentils) to dip it in) then a 2 hr drive with roads that were not too great, actually quite similar to this other route we accidentally took coming down to Khulna! Always sights to see all along the route, traveling in Bangladesh is not boring! We got to see some pretty neat boats and it’s always of interest to see what all the little shops along the way have going on. It’s better, as passengers, to focus on roadside activity rather than the driver’s job of passing slow moving rickshaws while making sure to be out of the way of oncoming buses kareening our way..!..

As we pulled up to our Brother Aaron and Sister Joy-?-?-‘s place(in a cloud of dust), on the right side of the road was rice fields as far as the eye could see, with a tree row on a far distant horizon. Running along side the road was a canal. A slight breeze kept it from being still and the sun shone hotly… took us back to California days..

We walked down a narrow footpath from the road both sides of the path dropping steeply down to water. The 1st outbuilding we came to was the outhouse, right next to the path. I’m afraid you’re getting the wrong picture of an outhouse in your mind’s eye so let’s do a quick picture! (.. because I’d never had the like be my only bathroom facility before either!).. so, head height walls being made up of an assortment of boards, etc. (Don’t think precision anywhere in this picture) so definitely light of day between the boards, the door only met at the bottom corner and angled back leaving it maybe a foot and a half away at the top. Inside a bucket of water and a squat pot with a roof over the pot area, low enough that an adult could not stand up under the roof. Anyway a person appreciated a “potty guard”.

Next outbuilding was the church house where normally we’d have Sun school, lunch, then church. Today we opted not to bring our interpreter along since we were already riding with Doyle’s making it 11 in the 8 seat minivan. So we visited then were served rice, thinly slivered spicy potatoes and dhal. This taking place on mats on the dirt floor. Aaron’s mother lives with their family there also and their 16? yr old daughter was around too. Their older and younger boy weren’t currently home.

So after a short service of singing together and a scripture and thoughts shared by bro. Aaron we loaded back up and headed back the way we’d come.

We went into Khulna later that evening for supper at the hotel. Ordering naan, Chinese style meat dishes and fried rice. The children played in the play area while we waited for the food to be prepared.(love these play areas!) 

Fri April 4 1st time to a Khulna church service

 A normal worship day in the future (we are told) will consist of 2 Sunday Schools at different locations then a church service at 4:30 just walking distance from our house. 

This morning, Lonnie and Raf went for a haircut at our Brother Liton’s barber shop.

 Krystal made spaghetti for lunch.

Then walked to church. 

(Bro) Lewis, wife and dau. and niece, 3 single brethren- Liton 33yrs old, Kobid and Shomid 42 and 43 yrs old, and a local attendee.

I spent the whole service dealing with Annslie…

Invited the 3 single brethren for ca(tea) after church. Krystal made the tea with cinn. stick, ginger root, cardamom (not ground), basil leaf, and loose tea. We had bought a bag of the crunchy spicy Bangla snack mix at Safe & Save the other night so we had that too.

They stayed an hour or so and after they left we had supper of leftover pizza from last night (we’d ordered extra for this purpose).

Thurs April 3 off to Khulna

 We were shooting to leave by 8:30 but it was 9:20 before we pulled away..

Our GPS said 5+hrs and that should’ve been red flag enough since it should? only be a 4 hr. drive.. anyway when we made an advised turn it gave us huge question marks! After scrutinizing Google maps it appeared like shortly north of Gopalgonj we had been sent on a more westerly route🤦🏼‍♀️ and by the time that we consulted the map it seemed like better time sense to continue than to back track… so we headed on down roads where no other autos were driving… just motorbikes, rickshaws, .. the road narrowed to not much more than the width of our van and just wasn’t a road you could make time on.. we groaned at the thought of 2 hrs of this but then endeavored to bolster our courage with “just look at all the scenery we would’ve missed out on and we maybe would’ve never seen this part of BD otherwise!?”

The road got better and then quite a bit worse for a stretch and in the end it wasn’t a whole 2 hrs of “out in the boonies”

We finally did arrive, making the whole trip without ever stopping👍🏼

Doyle and Krystal and 4 littles from Gopalgonj (1 1/2 hr driving distance) had arrived the night before.

We ate a pb n j to tide us over till supper time since we hadn’t had lunch but was 2:30 already.

It happens to be Doyle’s Rafael’s 5th birthday today so we went to Dominos for pizza. The Best pizza we’ve bought in BD yet!🤩

They showed us the shopping center there in Khulna and we went to the grocery store Safe & Save. Bangladesh does not cease to amaze me. We drive up amongst the most 3rd world conditions and step into a grocery store with 4 levels complete with elevator! That would be the day I frequented a 4 level grocery store back in America! But, for clarification, that is not 4 levels of groceries! And certainly does not have everything that I would be used to cooking with!!! The 2nd level is household and small appliances, 3rd floor is shoes, clothing, 4th floor is not air conditioned-inventory-but most importantly… restroom!

Back at the house we had cake and icecream in honor of Raf turning 5. The cake had been made and decorated by our night guard’s daughter in law Sumitha(sp?) beautifully done in Bengali fashion🫶🏼 made right here in our village! Truly impressive what can come forth from the a 3rd world village.

Wed. April 2

 We had language and the children had school so Jared’s offered to go get dim n ruti(scrambled eggs and fry bread) and serve at their house for Kurt’s for breakfast.

Paninna was 30 min late which she explained in great detail and thanked us for understanding😉

Kurt’s came by at 10:00 to say “hi” to Paninna then off to see about some last minute finds they were hoping would be available at the market.

Lunch at the clinic with the whole crew.

We’d ridden with Jared’s and offered to take some of Kurt’s family back with us also. Ended up getting 14 in a normally 8 seat minivan. Kurt & Janie found their own adventure for the afternoon.

While my girls had a high o’ time with Kurt’s 2 youngest girls Kristi 10 and Kaya 5! Playing in the water on the roof most of the afternoon! Kurt’s got back round 5:00 and they went to Jared’s for a light supper before they loaded up and headed for the airport and America! Was excited for them!… back to the comforts of America😌

We did laundry and started preparations for leaving in the morning.

Tues. April 1 1st overnight guests🤗

 4:30 left for singing at the clinic with Josna and Sumita. Kurt and Janie Nightengale + 4 children(Mackay,ID) are back in Dhaka after a 2 wk adventure around Bangladesh. So they helped us sing that eve and we all went to Herfys for supper. The place was Packed!! But they did very well in getting us a string of tables for all 16 of us! And also getting what we ordered straight!🤗 at the supper table the the air bnb finally got with Kurt, letting him know they had overbooked and the room they’d reserved was not actually available! So of course, we told them to just come on down and spend the night at our place. Their oldest dau. went to Jared’s and we had room for everybody else. Was enjoyable to finally get acquainted with these folks that we’d heard about for years😉👍🏼.

Mon. 31 Test Day

 I had just a little of my test left, so Paninna checked Lonnie’s homework and test while I finished my test. After she checked our tests, we were suppose to see if we could correct the mistakes on our own. Then she went thru each mistake with us. On a new page we were supposed to write the number of the problem, the correct answer, and the gramatical rule. By time we got thru all the mistakes I was emotionally at the breaking point…. I told Lonnie he was welcome to grade my test, if he wanted to, but I was quite sure I flunked it and my gut feeling was that my grade would be a 43%..  he did grade it eventually and said it wasn’t as bad as I’d tho’t.. I asked if it was a 50%.. and then eventually I did get the courage to peek at the grade.. was pleasantly surprised with an 83%!???! Was pretty sure he must’ve have not figured something right so we went back over counting the points possible and it appeared that he had figured correctly!?! That was encouraging, maybe I have been able to retain more than I first thought of this month of language study. Lonnie made a 93%..

  We were not assigned homework!😌

I did some “kitchen therapy”.. made banana muffins for our upcoming trip and Mock Oreo cookies with a box of gluten free cake mix that I’d accidentally picked up the other day.. ended up being a texture and taste that we were not accustomed to..