Monday: We didn’t have any language class this morning so that was kinda nice! Kinda could let our brains rest and study the previous days lesson… It was about pronouns, formative (speaking to adults) and informative (speaking to children or those of a lower station), greetings depending on if a person is Muslim/Hindu/Christian, currency, simple conversation such as “How are you? I am well,” numbers 1-5, simple commands “please open the book,” and then commands for riding in a rickshaw, “to the right please,” or “please stop here.” . In the afternoon Amber, the three children and I hopped onto a rickshaw and went to the tailors. When we were at the market last week I bought some material to make two 3 piece kamis. So dropped that off there. He measured me from head to toe. We had him add extra on the sides for when my baby bump gets bigger. I’m sure it will not surprise anyone that one is hot pink! Haha! Bright colors abound here. The tailor shop was intriguing. Rows of big spools of brightly colored thread. Huge spools, probably three times the size of a serger spool. They absolutely make their sewing machines FLY! Never saw one sew so fast! Then they flick the fabric in place with their wrist and pedal to the medal away they go again. The one tailor had a massive mound of fabric scraps beside and around him it looked like he would have had to leap over it all to get to his sewing machine in the corner. Lots of different styles of dresses and blouses hung from the ceiling. After that we went to the pharmacy. They gave the children Vitamin C tablets. They hand them out like they are candy here. Amber took me to another grocery store that we could go to that’s close to our flat. It’s so interesting to me how many American brands there are here! Quaker Oats, Oreos, Blue Diamond nuts, many of the same shampoos, conditioners and soaps and cosmetics…. If you want to someone to find something you need you have to tell them the brand. So instead of saying “where are the oats?” you have to say “where are the Quaker Oats?” Layton and I stayed at Daniels until Jared and Daniel came home from the clinic. The clinic is open Sunday, Monday and Tuesday from 10-1. They saw about 30 patients. Layton had woke up at 2 AM and didn’t go back to sleep. So we let him nap about an hour in the afternoon before we woke him up. They advised us to not nap more than an hour in the afternoon to help with jet lag. It was tremendously hard to wake him up so we finally just let him pass out on the couch. Trevor and Lisa and their children and teacher stopped in for awhile in the evening. That finally woke Layton up! They are really jolly people! So had some good talks and laughs. After they left Layton and I could not keep our eyes open for love or money so we went to bed early. One thing that’s been an adjustment is how there is constantly air traffic overhead. We live close to a military base so the aircrafts are roaring overhead as though they could land on our street. The helicopter noise makes the windows rattle. Several fighters jet flew over and wow what a tremendous roar!!! Sure different than how quiet our place was in Kansas. We could hear the neighbors rooster crow a mile away. But I’ve decided I’m not going to compare Kansas and here. It’s not conducive to us feeling settled and content here.
Tuesday: Layton woke up at 3:30 AM. I gave him some melatonin because I was not amused and he went back to sleep and slept until 8 when the language teacher came. He was a very happy boy today for a change. The last few days have really tried me with him. So hoping sleep and extra TLC is the cure. While Jared and I studied in the afternoon he inspected all components in the kitchen. He dug out anything of interest to him and figured out how it worked. I just let him. 😂 Figured as long as he was happy and not destroying anything it couldn’t hurt. He is finally eating again and is making up for not eating for several days, so is begging for snacks and food every little bit. Language class… reviewed a lot from Sunday and then learned how to tell time, emotions and how to ask someone how they feel. Later in the afternoon we went to the clinic and sang with the sisters. Trevors stopped in and joined the fun. Afterwards we got in rickshaws and went to a Bangladeshi version of a Chinese restaurant. Our driver didn’t know where he was going and all of a sudden there we were lost as bee without her Bonnet. Jared finally told him to just drop us off where we where, so we just waited until Daniel came and found us.
Wednesday: Language class again… Studied a bunch of verbs and nouns. Also a bunch of questions like “where, how, why, do you have meat? Where is the meat?” Most of the nouns were names of food so that we can ask for what we need at the grocery stores. Many food names are in English but there’s also quite a few that aren’t. For lunch we went to the clinic where the sisters made Bangla food. Rice, fried chicken, then a cooked vegetable mixture of cauliflower, potatoes, carrots, onion and garlic, Dahl (made from lentils I think.) Then limes and cucumbers on the side. The cucumbers help cool the spice from the vegetable mixture. It has some kind of green chilis in it that add some spice. It was superb!I especially enjoy the Dahl. I warned Layton before hand about using his hands and that it was ok if his hands got dirty with food. He did very well and ate a bunch of rice and 3 helpings of chicken, so I was very proud of him!! He generously used my sleeve for a napkin. Oh well… loose some win some😂 These people here are not used to letting children run and play. They are very cautious and don’t let their children roughhouse as getting hurt means having to pay money for a doctor. On the way to the clinic, Layton and Nicolee were running and jumping and acting crazy like 5 year olds do and twice someone told them to “be careful slow down you could fall and get hurt!” Then at the clinic they both climbed up the metal wrought iron gate and swung on it. All of a sudden a man from the street came and told them to get down they could get hurt! They would be horrified if they saw the things Layton does at home😂 We were at our apartment the rest of the day so that we could study. And so Layton could have some “home and mama” time. He goes to Daniels while we have class every morning.
Thursday: no language class today but we still studied a lot. I finally quit studying this afternoon for several hours cuz I could hardly think straight. Memorizing has never been my strong point. She gave us a wack of nouns and verbs to “know 100%” before she comes on Sunday. The crazy thing is is when we talk Bangla to someone at the little market or on the street they reply in English. Or they laugh and hoot and say “Bangla!!”😂 All this studying with Jared reminds us of nursing school!!! At least there are no “quizzies.” (any Hesston graduate would quake at the word quizzie. It meant you where taking the famed Hugo Boschman Microbiology class) In the afternoon Amber and I went to the tailor to pick up my new duds. They are very comfortable and there’s “room for growth.” Layton was happy to ride on a rickshaw again. Jared and Daniel had tea with the brother from here in the evening.
Friday: Church this morning. The brother had the opening and then Jared had the message on the Beatitudes. The brother interprets the services. The sisters were excited to see me wearing my Bangladesh clothes. They had been hoping I would wear them to church! Us and Daniels went to the tourist part of Dhaka to a hamburger place for lunch. It looked and felt like an American restaurant. Very interesting to watch the people in that part of town. All sorts of nationalities. The embassy is close by so there’s more English speaking people. In that part of town you see more ladies with their hair down with no ornas over their heads. More people wearing western clothes… Jared drove for the first time on the way home. Friday was a good day for him to practice because there is less traffic. However we ran into a political rally so a lot more people to dodge. When you are stopped in traffic for any length of time, you have children peering in your windows offering to dust your car, ladies selling pens and stickers or men selling fruit, maps etc. or people just wanting money or food. There’s never a shortage of things to watch. The traffic here remains me of Black Friday in Wichita except add in people walking in between cars, rickshaws and huge buses to the mix too. We spent the rest of the day at home studying for language class. Was a day of emotional adjustments as well. Lots of new this past week.
Saturday: Layton woke up early with a cough then he fell out of bed twice. Then at one point he woke up crying because he thought we wouldn’t ever see Amber and Nicolee again. So I made him take a nap this afternoon. We’ve been trying to avoid napping to help our nights go better. Still working on the jet lag. It’s definitely better than it was. I gave myself grace and napped this morning. Was still feeling emotional and the lack of sleep didn’t help this pregnant mama any. I woke up and felt so much better! Felt like my old self again. It came to me that having an emotional adjustment day now and then is ok. We know clearly that God called us here and even though we are at peace it’s normal to have some rough days with such a massive life change. For sure when you need to be a stable security for your child who is also adjusting along with you. Jared and Layton went to the small store by our apt and got some veggies and fruit. We try to buy fruit, veggies, milk and eggs from the little vendor stands and then just get meat and other random ingredients when we go to the big store on Fridays. Mid morning Daniel, Jared and Layton went to get a fish for lunch. The men that sell them keep them on huge bowls of ice. They got a huge carp that was 2.5 feet long Jared thought. They brought it home whole and then it got skinned and chunked up. Our housekeeper cooks lunch most Saturdays for everyone! That is a real treat. Today she made rice, fried fish, Dahl (with tomatoes added this time) and then instead of the vegetable mixture like last week she did cooked papaya and carrots. We are finding on Wednesdays and Saturdays we don’t need much for supper after those big meals. 🙂 We might all come home with rice bellies😂 I always poked fun at people that have housekeepers and said I would never do such. But this lady is a lifesaver. She comes three times a week to our apartment and sweeps and mops the floors and cleans the bathroom. These floors get so filthy so fast from all the dust and dirt. Our feet are always black on the bottom by bedtime.😕I’m always surprised at the amount of dirt she sweeps up. I’m so glad I don’t have worry about cleaning yet too while we are settling in and spending so much time on studying and language class. She has been cleaning here for years. Spent the rest of the day at home studying for class tomorrow. Layton thought life was pretty rough because we were out of cookies so I made some chocolate chip ones. Had to use a different recipe because mine calls for shortening and that’s not really available here. So found one with butter instead. Then I cut up a Hershey’s bar for chocolate chips. I think they are available sometimes here but I couldn’t find them yesterday at the store. Cooking here is definitely different. Meat and vegetable and fruit and most dairy products are easy to get but things like cream soups, instant puddings, green chiles (canned), tortillas, tortilla chips aren’t available. They have frozen tortillas but you have to fry them and they are sweet. And when it’s hot you don’t want to heat your house up anymore than necessary. The weather is lovely right now. Feels like late summer in Kansas. Very little wind. We found out that it won’t work for us to have the baby at theBaptist Hospital by the coast like we had thought. Their doctor of 35 years is going home to the states on a year long furlough and they are having a hard time getting a visa for another US expat dr with a Bangladeshi medical license. So we will have the baby here in Dhaka. I’m relieved because I did not relish the idea of driving 12 hours home with a newborn. Amber is getting an apt set up for me. Sounds like it works much the same as it does at home. I’ll probably have a couple Sonos, bloodwork and everything as usual. They do tons of C Sections here. This dr has done close to 3,000 so we feel like we are in good hands. There is a NICU if something should go awry. Some days I go crazy not knowing if the baby is a boy or girl. I’m not one of those that likes to have it be a surprise. They don’t tell you the gender typically here but that doesn’t mean I won’t still play dumb and try to ask them.😂 I do miss my Dr Geifer, Jennifer and Heather at NMC, but I know I can text them if I have a question. They were really excited about us coming here. Dr Geifer was quite confident that things would be handled just fine here.
Finally got my phone switched to a Bangladeshi phone number. Here’s the number…. 8801961597114 I lost a lot of my contacts so I was grieved. SIM cards are a challenge to get here. We had to find someone that was a citizen of Bangladesh and have them buy us two. Because otherwise if we buy them they are connected to our 3 month visas and will expire every three months. So one of Daniels friends agreed to get them for us. So now we just pay at the store to have more data added. Quite a deal when your used to Verizon unlimited😂 We could have just bought new phones but that is expensive so we will just use our existing phones with SIMs.
Sunday…. Language class today. We practiced how to tell a rickshaw or CNG driver where we wanted to go and how to bargain with a shopkeeper. In the afternoon we hired a rickshaw and went to Farmgate (a big market here that I described last time.) and just nosed around. So many many sights. Little cage of quail for sale, slimy looking tiny fish in a basin, crabs with their pinchers tied close in a cage, dogs sound asleep on the side of the road, men selling SIM cards, ladies holding babies asking for food, so many clothes, one man had a pile of unsewn jeans on his bike. Must have had several hundred pair. Wonder if he was a tailor? We came back to our area and went to a pharmacy and got some allergy meds for Layton. 30 cents for a bottle of Zyrtec. I’ll have you know we talked Bangla to the drivers and store owners.😂So not bad for only being in language study for a week. I guess that’s a benefit of having an intense fast paced course. We felt quite encouraged that we had pulled the whole stunt of completely by ourselves. I think we will make it here!
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