August 7-August 13, 2023

Time has been a blur this past week. Seems like the days just run into each other. I get up get my day going and it’s not long and it’s time to make supper.🫢 Life is good though! Took a day to do laundry and get reorganized after being gone to Fellowship. Singing on Tuesday evening… lunch at the clinic on Wednesday… beef curry and egg curry. Oh it was delicious! A patient’s father was impatiently waiting at the clinic gate for Jared to give him some milk when we got there. Of course the man didn’t think the amount Jared gave him was enough. Apparently this man had come to the clinic earlier in the morning and hounded the sisters all morning. Not sure why they didn’t call Jared and tell him  he was there instead of just have the guy wait until we showed up for lunch. Never saw the sisters so grumpy before. 🫢 Josna was in the kitchen stirring her pots and Sumita was upset when we got there. Her Bangla was fast and clipped, she was so worked up I couldn’t understand a word she was saying. Apparently it was because the guy comes every month and always forgets to bring a bag for the milk so he always has to use one of their bags. After the ordeal was over Miriam said “We are Christian, the Bible says to talk nice not dirty. Boss is good at helping poor people out.” By the time the gentleman left and we had eaten the sisters had gotten back to their usual happy selves 😀Shania’s been more fussy lately. Drool abounds. Her wee hands look like wrinkled prunes sometimes from all her chewing on them. Her thumb continues to be her BFF. It’s hilarious, I have never seen the like! Layton never sucked his thumb at all. She is determined that her thumb should be in her mouth at all times. When she drinks her bottle she tries to wedge her thumb in sideways. Sometimes one thumb isn’t enough, two is needed! She likes her paci though at nap time and bedtime and that gives her hands a chance to dry out. Layton has been busy with his little projects. One day he wanted me to write down all the parts it would take to build an airplane. Good thing dreams are free. One morning he was quite perplexed. “If I fly from our place to Grampys or papas, what happens if I run out of fuel?” I said “well… get a bigger fuel tank.” That provided him a few more minutes of deep pondering on how to solve this dilemma. He has really been into drawing. I printed off a whole bunch of airplane pictures and he has been busy coloring them and designing how his future plane will look. With all the solemnity that such a young entrepreneur needs he informed me that the new plane will be called an “Airbus 786 R.” Stay tuned to local news to see how this turns out. Saturday evening we had Josna, Sumita and Doyle’s over for the long awaited Stromboli. Natun invited himself too but last minute some work related things came up so he wasn’t able to come which was a real bummer! Sumita wanted chocolate cake and ice cream too. She said she wanted to eat them out of a bowl so she could mix the two together. I made chocolate sauce to go with it, and they weren’t quite sure what to do with it. I showed them how to drizzle it over the ice cream and cake and they were delighted. At the end of the meal they said it was very good! Made my heart feel happy and fulfilled to make them their pizza and cake. After supper when us ladies were doing the dishes, Sumita and Josna reminded me of Grandma Ensz. They scoured the bottom of my cookie sheets with a scrubber until they shone, Josna wiped off the stove to within an inch of its life because Sumita thought I had too much oil on it. Then I was told I needed new dishpans since mine have a crack in the side. Sumita scrubbed the dish drainer and then propped it up to dry. what a deal! Sunday the children and I went to the jute store. Kinda wanted to just get out for awhile. I love that store. Everything there is made from jute. After seeing it harvested at Golpagange it was especially interesting. While we were browsing the lady working there followed me around. When she saw Shania one of the first questions was “Caesar or normal?” 🫢 (speaking of ‘Caesar’s, a lady told me on the street the other day, that I could only have one more baby, because three Caesar’s is the limit.) Came home with some treasures. The moyla lady spotted me coming through the gate with my bags. I had Shania in the baby carrier and was holding an umbrella in one hand and the bags in another. I almost slipped because the courtyard gets slick when it rains.  Unfortunately she saw my clumsy plight and came running. She grabbed my bags and hauled into the elevator. On the ride up to our floor, I got a stern lecture about having “babo” out in the rain and didn’t I know that “babo” could have hit her head if I would have fallen, and I could have landed on my rear?!?! So don’t worry, these Bengalis are keeping this lady at the straight and narrow whether I like it or not. Pretty sure they think this is my first rodeo. Sometimes it really wants to annoy me how they are so curious, but then the next week it sorta cracks me up how they think I’m so helpless. Maybe I am… Jared has been busy getting papers around for the next financial audit. Jon was able to get Kelly’s work visa renewed which means we won’t have to have to pay a huge chunk of money for exit visas for the six of them the end of the month. Still absolutely not one word on Jared’s visa. Not even a security clearance… Hoping it will all of a sudden go through like Trevor’s did.