Wed. June 25

 Crystal (my big sis) called just as we were finishing a late breakfast. Good to chat with her awhile😊

Lonnie had a patient from the milk program scheduled to arrive here at 9:00. They have a child that is 3 yrs old so would not normally be receiving from our program still so Lonnie asked them to bring the child by. I did not go out to investigate. The report was rather gruesome and we’re glad to help out! The child’s head is way oversized, just sockets with eyelids, a hole where the nose should be with teeth protruding near there, deformed limbs, has to be fed with a syringe,…💔

Dipti made Bangla noodles for our lunch since we were still eating on last week’s curry 😅

Lonnie took Kobid and met with the landlord of the clinic here then on to Chakrakali where the 2nd Sun. school has been in the past but we’ve haven’t Got started back up yet. Nobody was home so they’ll go by there another day.

Later Lonnie went to check on the progress of the men at the trench. The river, where it has been just cow pasture since we’ve been here was now 20 ft across covering the trench area he’d helped with yesterday. He stopped a couple other places upon being bidden. One there was a lady on the porch studying algebra in a Math book. She was working to get her Master’s Degree, her husband is a Hindu singer currently in the Sundarbans(An expansive national park south of here). Another stop was at a school room that he’d noticed before..metal on the roadside mosquito netting on the pukar(pond) side. He could hear it was occupied so decided to visit. About 8 students, 2 teachers, Classes 9,8,&7. The one boy that seemed aloof surprised Lonnie and asked if they could be friends?! So Lonnie asked him what it meant to be friends in Bengali culture? That made him think 💭 he spent awhile typing a nice sized paragraph on Google translate then erased it and said it meant to “communicate, talk”. And one of the teacher’s said it meant “to come by here and visit”. 

Later Lonnie took the rest of us on a walk. Stopped at a dokan just past our church building as it had started to sprinkle. The dokander gave Annslie a duck shaped sucker. The rain didn’t stick around long and we were soon on our way again, Out to the wide open space at the edge of the village along the “river”.  A mother and daughter walked up to the main path about that time to pick up a couple new end tables so Lonnie offered to carry them to their house for them. And we trailed after. The husband was there with a new chicken coop also on his rickshaw van. The mother right away picked up one of her young ducks for Annslie to pet trying to get Annslie to let her hold her. She let the duck go and proceeded to call the small flock of young chickens and ducks which came running to her immediately when she called them.. pretty impressive☺️ Of course they wanted us to stay for tea, we declined and told them we were on a walk. Continued walking along the “river” back on the village  side. Men sitting on the levee and the homes over here seemed to have better kept yards, huge trees, giving the feeling of a campground😌 at one spot on the narrow levee path, a momma cow and her calf weren’t about to budge so we went down the bank and around them. And on to the trench Lonnie had helped back fill yesterday.. the water had receded again so it was easy to see where they’d been working. We’re still trying to figure out if this river is affected by the tide, a dam, or what? Made a little loop and came back thru the village at a different spot, past some young boys,10 yr olds? by a pukar (pond)One boy had a long cane pole with several prongs at the end.. Lonnie asked him if he was spearing mach (fish)? He replied with his back to us, “frog”. So I repeated “bhang”(frog) back to him and he gave a huge shy grin. It was kinda funny how we were each using the other one’s language but at least we knew we were on the same page😌 These folks, especially the young ones, like to try out their English on us.. 💭 but Rhidoy told us the other day, “English words are meaningless.” Even if he can often definitely get his point across in English. I imagine it feels a little like us trying to use their words to relay something verbally…