August 27, 2010

Dear friends,

I am missing my family and friends back home.  I was sick all day, wondering if I should reach for that antibiotic that my travel doctor told me to take if I needed it.  Then something sparkling in two different shades of blue caught my eye through the hazy netting over my bed...the Swedish birds from home. I'm so glad I packed them.  My mom gave me the dark blue one,  Tatiana the littlest one, and I bought the other.  They remind me of home.  I put the antibiotic back in the drawer and decided once more to be brave.

More notes from the bed:  Sometime in the late afternoon someone sings/calls out from the mosque into some sort of sound magnification system a call to prayer.  All hammers stop pounding in the construction site.  All is quiet.  The same thing happens when the specific time comes for the fasting faithful to eat and drink water.  Again, all is completely silent and the streets are bare. 

Happy birthday to my littlest grandson and happy tenth anniversary to his wonderful mom and dad.

Love and thanks to you all for giving me strength,
Karen

Beautiful Smiles

apnar nam ki?  (What's your name?)

 

This is what I should have said when the girls allowed me to take their picture.  I was dropping Adrienne off at her apartment on Friday and these girls were sitting on the ground playing a game with a stone.  

A Surprise Flower

August 23, 2010

Greetings,

One of the first things I did (I had my driver do!) when I got here was to buy some potted plants.  I gave him some money and asked him to get a few.  When I came home there were six huge clay pots with green plants in them.  I have had them in my apartment for some time now.  Some have become crinkly, but I still like them. 

I came home to find that one of my plants had blossomed.  I think that is a wonderful sign of beauty amidst all the struggle that people go through here on a daily basis.  Life is hard here in Dhaka, but there is beauty here too. 

Love,
Karen

Dreaming in Dhaka

August 22, 2010

Dear ones,

I am fascinated by so much in Bangladesh that it is sometimes overwhelming.  It was amazing to me how quickly I started dreaming about the people here and even their speech.  I thought the stuff of dreams happened over years of time, but I guess not.  The rhythm and sounds of so many languages just drift through my head all the time.  Bangla is the language spoken here.  People greet you with words that mean, "Peace be with you."  I have found that something like a salute makes people respond with a warm smile and a kind of glow that I have never seen before.

I am going to send a picture that shows the construction workers that labor daily right outside my office window at home.  First, load upon load of concrete is carried in baskets on the heads of young men as they walk up stairs balancing their loads and finally dump the wet, heavy contents onto the "floor" of the level of the apartment they are building.  The picture shows the way heavy loads are carried by foot on the ground.  They do all this in the blasting heat and humidity that make me whine.

I love you all and miss home,
Karen

Dreaming in Dhaka

Hi everyone,

I didn't realize how quickly the human mind begins to collect images that are brand new and translate them into dreams.  I began dreaming almost from day one about my principal, complete with her Australian accent.  "Teacher dreams" happen here, too.  My teacher nightmare actually did come true here on my third day of teacher workshops.  The power had gone off during the night and my alarm clock had fallen to the floor (broken).  My cell phone was new and the alarm ring was set at zero.  So, I slept the "sleep of the dead."  (My sister Caroline's description of finally falling asleep after traveling overseas.)  I was awakened by incessant LOUD pounding on my thick wooden door.  People were concerned.

I am going to post a picture I took right outside the beauty salon of rickshaw drivers just waiting for business.  The guys in the picture were happy to see their image on my camera.

More later.

Love always,
Karen

Rickshaws

I keep wondering what Dhaka would have been like with no cars.  Just rickshaws.

Construction

I can't believe how everything is done here by hand. Construction amazes me. These young men have put cement down load by load, carried on the head in a basket. Now they are climbing up the steel rods to start the next step. I can see the progress right out of my office window.

This picture shows Bangladeshi people going home to their villages for the holidays.

August 17, 2010

August 17, 2010
 Dear Family and Friends,
Life in Bangladesh continues to get better and better. The people here make it good. School personnel are just fabulous and make life as easy for us as possible. For instance, the painter came to my office today to ask about the colors I wanted to paint my apartment. They are starting tomorrow. Any ideas??? I go back and forth. I finally decided that any color would be better than a cavern of starkwhite, so I did an initial pick of colors one night when the power had gone out and I was choosing by candlelight. The power does go off several times a day, even at school. There are back up generators, but it is definitely darker, even at school.
The students at school are from as many different nations as you canpossibly imagine. We did a survey in one first grade classroom and found that many of the six year olds speak more than two languages. So, you can imagine how English might be hard for them right now. I am having a hard time learning names of the students in the three classes that I'm in. There are no names that are common to me, excep tmaybe an Annika or two, spelled in different ways. Most children are very well behaved. They bring their snacks for lunch and I notice such a variety: shrimp in rice, rolled up meat in a type of tortilla, fruit and veggies, and occasional junk food.
I share a maid and a driver with the woman across the hallway. She has never had our maid do cooking. Today I asked Sonja our maid to cook a Bangladeshi dinner for two and to set the table, even though it was just going to be me. :) I just wanted to see how she'd do. She had fried something like eggplant with spices. That was amazing. But she also cooked a type of broccoli medley, rice, and shrimp curry.  For dessert there was fresh mango. She makes an ice tea with spices she grinds with a mortar and pestle. I was pretty impressed. Now I just have to find a person to have over and a place to buy a bottle of wine. That's hard to do here.
I had been trying to swim, but lately I have been enjoying going to the gym at school right after school. There is a very sweetBangladeshi Christian woman who takes her time with me and teaches methe machines. She keeps insisting that I need to bring water and asks about my children and grandchildren with such a warm smile.  The opportunities to do charity work here are presenting themselves. I don't think I'll have to travel far by rickshaw or any other way to get involved. I did have one rickshaw ride on a very empty street.The traffic here still freaks me out unless I am in the back seat with my driver at the wheel. No, I am not driving. The younger teachers are, but not me.
Well, if you've read this whole post, thanks. I really want to hear from all of you. I hope to see many of you at Christmas.
Much love,
Karen