Ichi's Family

We became adopted by a certain family in the short month we were in Bangladesh. Zacharia knew them previously and was helping them. When we first met them they took us in to their modest home and immediately became our friends. Thereafter, I think we would usually get daily visits : )


The family's income comes from selling tea and fried foods in a shack. The father is paralyzed so the whole family has to pitch in. This is the mother and one of the daughters. They would always give us free food when we walked by. It was really hard to refuse.


Lots of people gather at their two bedroom home. There is always lots of laughter and fun and no one seems to be phased by the dirt floors, leaky tin roof, and animals wandering about.


The second room is where the animals are kept - mainly goats, cats, and chickens. There is only one bed that everyone piles onto.


The girls loved to comb my hair and put their jewelry on me.




Eventually, they got me into a sari also.


They kept saying "sooo beautiful!" haha


Meet "big smile". Jason first started calling him this and it stuck (can you see why??). Now everyone calls him this and when we come around he says it. There are a few phrases the kids like to say. Some others are "sit down" and "stand up" and "how are you"


They love to feed us of course...


S P I C Y


This is the star, Ichi. She put on a dance performance one night for us and she is really an amazing dancer.


This was on the last night there. We had fun taking pictures together.







The girls had such a good time dancing with Jason always. We will miss this family alot.

More Randoms from Bangladesh

Iqram never fails to make us laugh!


Saying good bye to our cook Raiyma. She started crying after this. It was a sad goodbye.


Oh the rain...


Sitting in on an IT discussion


Mud mud mud!


Reading by candlelight during one of the daily power outages


Cooking dinner by candlelight. Jason is a great photographer :)


This is a giant jackfruit, the national fruit of Bangladesh!!


Jason hated it haha.


My best friend there, Bristy. She lived above us and speaks English like a champ. We had some good times!


Dinner with local elected official and his "friends"


Getting bangles


With GoUF's founder and our great friend Zakaria!

Women's Day Training

We attended a training for women of Kawra villages that was facilitated and organized by GoUF. It was a three day training with topics of discussion including the importance of education, human rights, discrimination, dowrys, legal issues and laws, early marriage, hygiene, etc. We talked with a woman afterward who said she was honored to be there, though it meant sacrifices for her family, because she was beginning to think about things in a new way she had never thought of before.


First a woman from the government spoke, which GoUF invited. She talked about how it is illegal to pay dowrys to have their daughters married off, that it's illegal for a girl to get married before 18, and that a woman has the right to a divorce. There are many laws these village women are ignorant about because they are so isolated and the government has not stepped forward to educate them prior to this intervention.


It was held at a local school. The school had no electricity, running water, or a blackboard to write on but hey it's Bangladesh, this is completely normal!


Observing...


Zakaria facilitating a discussion about dowrys and early marriage. Iqram spoke next but we had to leave by that time.

Amal's House

We were invited to spend the afternoon at Amal's home today. Amal is the accountant here for GoUF and he lives about 5 mins away from the office by rickshaw.


Of course when we got there they wanted to serve us up some food right away!


Way too much food... the goat meat wasn't half-bad though :)


Amal's son likes to be a monkey.


Jason, Amal's niece, Me, Amal, and his son. His niece speaks English well and has been our translator for the past few days. She is awesome!


In front of his two story stone building they live in with his brothers family. By Bangladeshi standards, they are rich people with a very nice home.


Though on the other side of the street, there is a big contrast!

Random Pictures of What We've Been Up To!

This is what we have been up to these days! We have now completed 25 case studies and our goal is 30. We feel like we are getting all done we came here for and more! We are truly happy and enjoying the work. I can't believe we leave Bangladesh in four days!


I'm not sure what this structure is but it looked interesting!


One day we invited everyone to a Chinese restaurant for lunch. It was so yummy. The best thing was our cook Raiyma came. She was very hesitant because she doesn't feel she belongs, it is because of traditions that say she is of lower status. When we later told Zakaria about it he asked if she tried to sit on the floor. Supposedly it's a fauxpaw for a woman like her to sit on a chair. Change is coming slowly in Bangladesh.


A pink dragonfly


I was serving some ladies some sweets in my pj pants! Looking hot I know!!


We had to make an important phone call one morning and I was listening in. Iqram thaught we were so funny that he had to take this picture of us :)


We went and saw this community center one day. It is where people in the village can collect information and be tutored. Neat idea.


Our friends Bristy and Akosh invited us to dinner one night. Their mom kept piling more and more food on our plates and it was all fried food so we had big stomach aches afterwards. I also chugged a whole thing of coke. I hate coke!! Haha the things you do to be polite...


Jason and his pal Forhad. He comes over every night to hang out with us. I like to tease him a lot : )


This growses me out. Thank goodness for the filter on our water bottle. The bottom of the water bottle was so grimy. I had no idea! Thanks for cleaning it out Jason!!

Gratitude

I noticed something interesting today. I started writing a list in my journal of things I need to be thankful for when I'm out of the third world. It took me at least a week to think of enough things to fill up an entire page. This list included things such as clean towels, warm showers, A/C, mattresses, etc. Just today I started making a list of things I am grateful for now. The list was endless! I was surprised at how easy it was to come up with an entire page of things very quickly. I think that living here in Bangladesh has really made us more grateful in general. Small things make me smile and I look for beauty in the simplicity. Most of all I think that seeing how people have to live, with their bellies half full and their hope expired, each day makes me appreciate more that I'm an American.

The Market

There are many little stands like this with colorful vegetables I don't know the name of. Our cook likes to use strange combinations so it takes a bit getting use to :) I got smart and started cooking a little on my own, usually just okra and beans and potatoes.


First you tell them how much and then it gets weighed on their scale.


Nezt after it's payed for it, it all gets dumped into the bag.


They have onion, potato and garlic!


There is also fish...


and some sort of meat?


How bout one of the many chickens cooped up? Not a fan of chicken here!!


Ahh my favorite...a fruit stand. The fruit here is really good! It all gets boiled first though :)