Christmas Day 2023

So many people have asked what we did for Christmas so here’s a report: 

We left Doyle’s around 8:30 Christmas morning and headed to Bedgram to pick up the Golpaganj members that wanted to go with us to Kulna. Ripon, Ripons nephew and Kokon. Kokon’s wife Beauty didn’t want to come. Krystal told her that she should come and that her children were welcome to attend too. Her children are teenagers so we thought surely Beauty could leave them and come too but that’s not how this culture works. The teenagers still need to be taken care of plus it sounded like maybe they had a program to attend. Natun wanted to come with us as well but his parents wanted him to attend their Christmas program so he said he would maybe come later. We told him it was important for him to spend time with his parents now that he is in Golpagange. That boy just cannot stay away from us when he knows we are up to fun things (like having pizza for supper😂)  and for sure if we will be with Trevor’s and Doyle’s. Ripon hopped in with us and Doyle’s took the rest. Got to Santo’s (where the Kulna church is) around 10. Everyone was all smiles since it was Christmas Day. Santo had hung up purple cloth for a backdrop on the wall behind the “pulpit.” Then had covered the front of the pulpit too with it. It looked nice. We hardly recognized Santo at first. His boys had told him he had to dress nice since it was Christmas. 😄 He had on a long sleeved dress shirt, black dress pants and black shoes! Looked like he was ready for church at home. Santo had the opening then Ripon had some thoughts. Wade Buller (Trevor’s brother in law) had the closing thoughts. My children did not fail to disappoint with their behavior during the service. Both of them sat with me because we didn’t know if Jared would end up needing to share thoughts or not. Layton kept standing up wanting to see Sotti’s (Santo’s wife) duck flock in the pond by the church. We were sitting by a window so we had an excellent view for watching duck antics. Finally I sent him to sit by his dad. Shania kept wanting to stand up on my lap and look out the window too. The church is made from tin and she kept trying to scratch the wall with her fingernails which was not pleasant. Kari (Lisa’s sister) was sitting behind me and I heard her laughing at my feeble attempts at trying to keep Shania from scratching on the tin.😂 Finally I gave up and went and walked around outside with her until church was out. Krystal was doing the same with Jonas. Reminded me of the days when Treva and I were in the nursery together with Silas and Layton! After the service Sotti had to go take her goats to get some grass before we could leave. She didn’t have their little sweaters on this time! The rest of us loaded up on vans and in cars and headed to Trevor’s.  One of Trevor’s Hindu neighbors has been begging to cook for them so they had her cook for all of us. Trevor’s guard Tulsi made the cooks a little shack out of bamboo poles with leaves for the roof to cook under. It appeared as though the women kept him hopping. When we arrived he was very disgruntled because the cook and her helper made him cut up all the coconuts for the egg curry. The cook was clearly from a higher class. She wanted to use Lisa’s knives instead of their traditional cutting utensil. She wanted Lisa to blend up the garlic and onion in her blender so that she didn’t have to use the grinding stone! The day before Trevors and Wades spent a lot of time boiling eggs for her, getting 10 ducks butchered, and making seasoning packets for the curry. This was our first time eating duck curry and sadly I must say I was not a fan. The rest of the meal was great! Rice, vegetable mixture, Dal…They took the gizzards and made “tok” out of it. I didn’t have nerve to try it as any dish with innards scares me. 😳  Trevor bravely tried the duck feet. Lisa thought her husband had officially lost his marbles! Usually I will eat anything here with an open mind but for some reason the duck did me in. Natun showed up right before lunch. He was able to leave Golpagange right after going to church with his parents. Lisa made him his favorite cabbage salad and then all us ladies each brought a sheet cake. Some people wanted a piece of each. Bengalis love American cake! Trevors had a huge carom board set up and their dart board. Everyone enjoyed the games or just sitting and visiting! Us ladies sat and watched the Hindu ladies cooked. Every so often they would get one of the coconuts that Tulsi had cleaned out and scoop vegetables in it and then pass it around for us to taste and tell them if it needed more salt or spice. We immediately said no more spice! I had made a bunch of protein bites for snack before we had left Dhaka that I had brought along. I knew since this was a Bengali meal we wouldn’t eat lunch until later and sure enough we didn’t eat until three! I’ve learned to bring snacks around for events like this…  keeps the kids from getting hangry. At one point we were ready to eat but then Santo had to leave and go give Sotti’s goats some water. Trevors rolled out long mats on their porch and we sat there and ate. As I sat there and ate my food I had to look around at these people we have learned to love. Santo dressed up to the nines, Samid in his leather jacket, Ripon with his sparkly eyes, Sotti with her 10 kaj morich on her plate that she ate with every bite of rice, Santos boys who always are bugging Whitney and Brandi, Brock telling me “Brianna you should have seen these ducks get killed…. Blood squirted EVERYWHERE and do you want me to show you how the heads got chopped off?”, Natun with a massive plate full of cabbage salad “Now I am a cow eating all this salad!” Kokon and Liton hanging to the side of the crowd not saying much and quietly eating… I thought to myself this will really tug at the heartstrings to tell this all bye in two years. 💓After lunch we just sat and visited some more! Some played more games. We were all outside since it was cool. I really enjoyed visiting with Lisa’s sister Kari. They spent five years in Mozambique. We stayed until 4:30 and then headed home. Trevors wanted us to spend the night there but we had left our luggage at Doyles. Plus Wades are there with them and we didn’t want to crash their family time. It’s pretty precious when family comes to visit! Ripon and Natun came back to Bedgram with us. Natun talked the whole way back. He wondered if American houses were made from brick, if Americans left money to their children when they die, if you can live in an old house in America, how many times a day we drove our car, and if we wanted a coke could we walk to the store or would we have to drive to the store, how did Jared and I meet, (he thought Jared was a very brave man for sending me a card.😂) when did Jared move from Canada to US, could I have kept my fathers last name if I wanted too…  It was fun to have lively chatter… it made the drive go by fast. Ripon was mostly quiet. Natun begged us to stay in Golpaganj a day longer but we told him we needed to get back to Dhaka. He said “can’t all your paperwork just wait for another day?” Sometimes we just have to tell him “no.” We got back to Doyle’s after dropping the boys off and we were so tired. Shania and I went to bed at 8 and Jared and Layton soon followed suit! It was such a fun day!