A lot of normal living but we had some interesting activity. Tried to have school on as much of a normal routine and schedule as we could. Jared closed clinic down December 10. Dr Elizabeth was taking her family to the Maldives so closed it a-bit earlier than usual.
December 14: This evening was our CSI Christmas supper. We hosted it at the clinic. Seems to make the most sense to have it there because everyone other than us and Nathon live within walking distance of the clinic. I wasn’t sure what the menu should be this year. A few weeks prior Jon told Jared that “it’s too much work for Brianna to cook and haul the food clear from pink city. Pizza is fine.” We caught the hint and ran with it.😂 10 large pizzas from the Hut and a fix and mix bowl of cabbage salad and a cookie sheet of chocolate cake. I tell you there was hardly any left!!! It became a bit of a competition between Miriam’s boys and Nathon who could eat the most pizza. The winner was one of Miriam’s boys who had 11 pieces in total. The three participants all looked rather miserable. Haha! Even the ladies had 4-5 pieces a piece! After the meal they all wanted to sing Christmas songs so we did. Well I should say the Bengalis did and Jared and Shana and I tried to keep up and sing along. 😂 At one point Shana and I just lost it and died laughing! They sang a whole bunch out of our church songbooks that we didn’t even know. At one point they said “now you three need to sing one like in America, you know like with all those voices.” Well Shana and I are not singers so Jared said “you all sing and then we will try and do voices.” Well they sang so fast and off tune that it was rather hopeless.😂 Miriam’s husband was the self appointed song leader and boy did he give it his all. He is a strange cookie let me tell you. Jared says he only needs to be around him about once a year. Anyways… It was really enjoyable. Several messaged Jared afterwards and said how much they enjoyed it so that was really special! Gave Josna and Sumita and Miriam their CSI Christmas gifts. We gave them jackets or sweaters and then Josna and Sumita got back packs and Miriam got a new purse since hers looks quite worn. Josna and Sumita are always asking me for bags and luggage when they need to go on a trip and I get a little weary of it. So they were pleased with their backpacks. I was so pleased with my clever idea on what to get them, however my joy was very short lived. The sweater and jackets were a total flop. They all told me to take them back and get different sizes and different colors. I had got Josna and Sumita jean jackets cuz every time I wear mine they carry on so about how beautiful it is. I got Miriam a beautiful Lacey grey sweater but she said she wanted pink or green.😂 I was so frustrated. I had asked them what they wanted and they wouldn’t say so I struck out on my own. When they had all their complaints about their sweater and jackets, I just gave them money and told them to buy their own gift because I knew what would happen if I did try to return their jackets and sweater back to the Dokan and try to exchange them. They would have kept complaining and it never would have been quite right so I said “this is enough.” Last year I bought them all kameezes since that’s tradition here, but none of them ever sewed any of them. So we wrote in our books that clothing is not a good gift idea. Anyways… I’m glad it’s the last time we have to deal with that.😂 I gave Lucky a sweater and then gave her girls the rejected Jean jackets and she was so grateful and thankful! Her eyes just shone and her girls were so enthused about the jackets, they even wore them to the Christmas supper!
December 16: Victory Day! We weren’t quite sure what to expect this year for victory day. It’s like the 4th of July in the States. Since the protests back in July and August we weren’t sure if it would be celebrated or not since the interim government has gotten rid of some national holidays here. This one was celebrated in big style plus the “victory” of getting Sheik Hasina out of the country was thrown in the celebration as well. The “Liberation War” it’s called. Anyways, Pink City maintenance men and groundskeeping men were hard at work for a whole week before the celebrations. They repainted all the black and white strips on the curbs and medians, trimmed the bushes, planted winter flowers, put up a huge tent, set up 26 little food vendor tents along the street, hanging up Bangladesh flags, stringing lights up on both sides of the street, hanging up more banners and flags etc! It was quite entertaining to watch at times. We bought tickets to attend the food vendors. The 16th and 17th after 4 pm, they had pitas, fuska, chapoti, cha, tandoori chicken, naan, lots of different sweets, other rice dishes, etc. Bothe evenings Shana and I made multiple rounds to all the food booths.😂 we will leave it at that. Haha! The food booths were all ran by Pink City ladies and families or maids so that was neat. Met some more of our neighbors. It was loud the one evening until almost midnight… loud music, fireworks, etc. We just had the children sleep in our bedroom cuz there was no way they could sleep with all that ruckus going on. It was kinda a sad day when all the decorations and tents got taken down! It was such a neat community feel.
December 18; Shana and Josna and Sumita all boarded the bus at 7:30 and headed to Dineagpur. Josna and Sumita have been dropping broad hints ever since we came about going to their village with them at some point. Jared told them we could this winter, since it’s our last winter here. Anyways… they got to Josna and Sumita houses around 2:30 or so. Shana messaged me and said “this is the real experience.” I didn’t know if that was good or bad. 😂
December 19: Jared and I and the children left the house by 7 and headed for Dineagepur. I’m not going to lie, I did not want to go no more than nothing. But everyone else in the house was enthused about going so I decided I better get my big girl panties on whether I wanted to or not. The roads there were excellent! We didn’t have any jams the whole way there. Got there around 2:00. Was so interesting to see their village. Sumita had a lot of family living in her house. Shana spent night there. The poor dear had quite the experiences at night with friend mouse that kept making its appearance. Sumita house is much older and it’s not in very good shape. Josna’s house is only 10 years old and you can tell it is in immaculate condition. Her family takes meticulous care of what they own! Both houses have tin roofs and are made from mud and brick. Once a week they give the houses a fresh coating of mud/manure mixture. We stayed at Josna’s house. Sumita’s house is so small. People just sleep on thin prayer mats on the floor. Not really privacy for anyone. Josna’s house had three big bedrooms. In their courtyard they had stalls for the animals. One for the bull, one for the sheep, one for the cows and calves, etc. Josna had both an outdoor and an indoor kitchen. We took so many blankets and pillows along! Was glad we did because the bed was basically just wood and cardboard with a thin mattress on it. We put a soft blanket down and it wasn’t bad at all!! Both children slept in bed with Jared and I so we stayed cozy warm. The next day we took Sumita and several family members and Josna along to Sumita’s sisters place for lunch. Maybe an hour drive. It was rather humorous, because when we got there I noticed her brother in law was wearing Jared’s old pants, one of the children had on Layton’s old shirt, and another child was wearing Layton’s old sandals, and one of her nieces was wearing Whitney’s old dresses and Josna was wearing Lisa’s old sandals.😄 it is nice to know that when we give them our old clothes that they give them away! Anyways, lunch preparation was still underway when we got there so they took us on a walk. Walked through a forest that had “normal” trees in it! Jared said it reminded him of Colorado. We were maybe a mile or two from the India border. Walked back and Shana and Layton handed out some of their Christmas goodie bags that they made. After lunch we headed back to Josna and Sumitas houses. Spent the evening at Josna’s house, being with her family. Once again they cooked up a feast!!! Fish and duck this time. They did Muscovy duck and that stuff tastes excellent. I wasn’t so sure about it but it was delicious. Muscovy tastes more like roast beef than the other types of ducks we have eaten. This actually had some meat on the bones and wasn’t all blubber. The next morning we got up early and left at 6 am. Jared had paperwork to do and we needed to check on the clinic to keep the robbers away. Got back into Dhaka at 11:30! Our house felt like pure luxury after being in the depths of the village! Our area rug, our couch, our filtered water, and best of all our TOILETS. (If you know you know.)
December 25: lots have messaged and wondered what we did for Christmas, so here’s a report😃 The children could hardly wait to open their presents. They were both quite tickled with what Santa brought them! We left at 9 and headed to the zoo. It was the perfect day for the zoo. Cool enough that we didn’t break a sweat once. Spent a couple hours there. The monkeys were going crazy. Shania was not a fan of them. She loved the lions and tigers though… she kept meowing and growling at them! Came home and rested for a while and then we dressed up and went to the Woodfire Grill Steakhouse. It’s an American steakhouse and more on the pricey side. We only go there for special occasions. Anyways, it’s up on the 14th floor so the views of Dhaka were beyond impressive!!!!!! What surprised us the most, was we walked into the restaurant there was a Christmas tree, and there was Christmas music playing. “Angels we have heard on high, this little light of mine, oh holy night, joy to the world…” The workers were all wearing Santa hats and there were other Christmas themed things around. I know this doesn’t sound like anything because this is extremely normal to Americans but in this Muslim dominated country, to walk in on all that joy and hear real English songs about Jesus birth was almost too much. I wanted to cry. It felt like home, felt familiar and felt like it was normal to be a Christian. Shana said it felt so much like home that she felt like she should stop at Walmart on the way home.😂 if only… anyways, after we paid our bill we discovered the meat was all on sale. So mind you all 5 of us ate for less than.$50. Probably couldn’t do that at home.
December 26: Checked on the clinic and Jared went to the bank. He was quite stressed about his bank issue. It’s such a mess trying to get things accomplished at the bank when none of us here have a visa. Anyways him and I said some prayers and he was able to accomplish what he needed to do and it didn’t cause any account problems. We stuck our noses in the wind for Kulna! Got there around 4:30. We had a fun Christmas supper At Bruce’s. Bruce had went to some pig farm aways away and found a farmer that would sell him a ham from a young pig. Mavis brined it for three days. It was delivious!!!! It was a little More chewy than the ham at home but we didn’t care one speck. the kids just devoured it! She had the kulna house all decorated for Christmas. Greenery and ribbon, little lights, candles. They are taking such good care of the house. Bruce doesn’t let much grass grow under his feet.
December 27: Went to Hridoy and Pinky’s wedding today in Kulna. Hridoy is our member Shanto’s oldest boy. Hridoy is not a member so this is why the wedding was more of the traditional Christian/catholic service. We all piled on Rick Shaw vans. Jared said it was his o ly chance to say he went to a wedding on a rickshaw!😂This morning they had the “guy holud” which is kinda like our “night before” supper. It has its own sets of traditions. Typically they have it the evening before the wedding but this time they had it the morning of the wedding. When we got there at 9:30 We all crowded into Shanto’s house when we got there and shanto prayed over pinky and Hridoy who weee sitting cross legged on the floor. Some ladies that were all decked out in their gold and red were gathering things that were on the floor around Hridoy and Pinky. Shanto wanted Krystle and I To help. In fact he had us come up to the front of the crowd during the prayer. 😮Krystle and I had to carry pots down to some pooker with two other ladies. The rest of the guests followed. The one lady carried a board with a little oil pot that had fire in it and we all had to walk behind her. We filled the pots with holy water and then walked back to Shanto’s. We were told we could participate in this particular tradition since we were married women. I wanted Shana to get involved too but they said she had to just watch since she was single. Then the married ladies had to stand around the lady that was crushing the seasonings and touch her arm while she crushed the one seed pod thing. Hridoy and Pinky were sitting cross legged on top of a table Then one by one everyone rubbed the seasoning mixture on Hridoy and pinky’s faces and fed them tiny bites of fruit or sweet pudding. When it was my turn I had to ask Hridoy how to do it. Hridoy kept looking at me and laughing. Pinky looked tired. After that was over, Shanto and his boys jumped in the poker for a quick bath to wash off all the stuff of their arms and faces. people are changed their clothes into their saris. Shana watched them get the bride ready. They had a religious service. Pinky is catholic so a catholic pastor married them. Afterwards they served a huge meal of rice, vegetables, dal, fish and goat curry. Really good. Shania was mad because she was starving hungry but it was so spicy that she sat there huffing and puffy and crying with her tongue sticking out. 😜 that girl isn’t afraid to show her emotions. We left the wedding right after lunch. They said the celebration was over other than their photographer was going to do pictures down by the river yet. I felt bad what a mess there was for shanto to clean up. People had spent night in the old church and in their house. There were back packs everywhere! They had served kichuri to everyone for breakfast. Shotti had to pen up her ducks because they had just set the leftover bhat in a bowl on the ground and all of a sudden we saw the ducks just going crazy with eating the leftover kichuri.😂
December 28: Shana and the children took a bunch of gift bags out behind the kulna house and walked down that trail and handed out 14 of them to little kids they saw. One mom showed up at the gate and was mad that her child didn’t get one. Bruce yelled outside “sesh!” (Finished) After we left kulna we went to Nathon’s parent’s house for cha. Nathon wanted to show us his house that him and his dad are building. It looks like it will be a really nice. It’s Duplex style which means two stories. He said in 2 months the framework, walls and roof should be done. It’s going to have two bedrooms upstairs and two downstairs I think. I had given him some sugar cookies the last time he was at our house to give to his ma because last year I made her some and she loved them. 🩷 When we got there she told me that she had hid them so no one else in the house could eat them. 😂 Nathon thought Shana should try driving his dad’s scootie so she did. Nathon’s ma just laughed and laughed and said she would never try such a thing. Nathon told her that Brianna had a scootie in Dhaka and that American women aren’t afraid like Bengali women.😂 it was good to see Nathon again. We miss that guy when we don’t see him for a week or two!
December 31: Well well here it is the end of the month already. Ron and Darla Friesen flew in today. He is one of our revival
Ministers. Jared got them from the airport and then they came for lunch. Did cinnamon rolls and taco soup. Shania has been fevering off and on the last day or two so I was very glad for Shana’s help!
