Thurs. May 21

 This morning when Annslie checked the sticky trap, The mouse was caught! 👏🏼🥳🥳🥳👏🏼 It had made quite a mess of things already😝 getting into my kitchen drawers shredding newspaper and dragging it to the next drawer, leaving droppings all over, also getting into a precious bag of imported Doritos we’d found in Dhaka. So, I had my morning’s work cut out for me! It was 10:30 and Dipti was not showing up🧐 and I was really needing her! Lonnie went out walking on a mission, talked to Dipti’s husband and he said she wasn’t coming but Lonnie thought he’d go encourage her otherwise. 

Dipti just shared the big news that boro chele(oldest son) is getting married in a couple months! So therefore they have some work to do before they welcome their new daughter in law into their home!.. New kitchen and bathroom are the 1st on the agenda. Some advance wages and the work has begun with Dipti helping her husband.

This morning Lonnie thought he’d just go over there and help Uttam while Dipti came and helped me. But No Way! They weren’t about to let him help! And Dipti came to work after all. 

I was just about done scrubbing the drawer cabinet inside and out and around by time she arrived so she was there then to wash the contents of the utensil drawer.

With my limited Bangla, it sounds like Dipti’s sister suggested this girl, has been to college in Khulna, so an arranged marriage(they do not love each other🧐), when I asked the girls name…she didn’t know!🫣 but she was able to come up with it eventually🫡

So it will be interesting to see if I understood her correctly on these points, time will tell..

This afternoon while Lonnie was out in the village, Bro Liton and his 13 yr. old nephew Mikal showed up. He was planning to come the other day for an iced tea making lesson but something came up so now he showed up unexpectedly. I didn’t think that would be proper for me to invite him into our house of girls without Lonnie around so we sat out on the porch while I proceeded to try to get a hold of Lonnie by phone, no success. So I sent Tulshi on bike to tell him Liton was here. But Tulshi did not give a clear message so Lonnie did not realize I was expecting him to come home.. thinking Lonnie would surely show up any minute and not wanting to just leave Liton out in the heat without inviting him in, I just sat out on the porch and made small talk, which was probably just as bad as anybody passing by the gate could see us 2 sitting and chatting 🙄 the girls did all come hang out with us for awhile tho.. and who knows maybe nobody would’ve thought anything and I overthought everything too much!??! But at any rate, 1 1/2 hrs of sitting in the Hot sticky outdoors with the sweat dripping, waiting on my husband’s return(knowing, if he decided too, he could come home at anytime!) by time he showed up, I was madder n hops 🥵😑 #lifeisrealheretoo  So, Lonnie invited him in then. Paste that smile on for me and have ice tea making demo with the nephew videoing. And if a person fakes it till they make it, the smile does become genuine again🙃 Meanwhile, Lonnie was doing a quick clothes change because what had finally got him home was Bro Shanto’s call had gone thru to him (unlike all of mine🧐). They had a motorcycle accident and wondered if Lonnie could take them by gari (car) to the hospital. So he spent the rest of the evening with Shanto, Shotti, and Espondant 1st in 1 hospital and then on to the next. Espondant has a broken right arm/wrist (yes, he’s right handed, plus his Dad has to feed him because this culture does Not eat with their left hand!) Shotti’s right cheek is really swollen. And Shanto got some cuts and bruised up.

The story: they had been working in the rice field. Shanto was really hot and tired and didn’t think he could drive them home but Shotti was needing to get home and she wanted him to try. They were not far from home when Shanto got dizzy, he had slowed but was not able to keep the bike up.