Poka-Dotted Feet

Success! Another group of kids made it to Hili and back with a new pair of shoes, clothes, and ice cream. We have managed to take about 70 kids to town in groups of 6 to 8. As we head back from the fastest trip yet, I look down into the rice paddies submerged in water. The new rice grass is a beautiful, healthy green and only 7 - 9 inches tall. As it grows through the smooth, mirror-like water it seems that everything around is being reflected. I look past the green sprouts into the water and see the sun surrounded by big billowing clouds ready to close in on the shinning sphere. Its a magical scene. The once dry, barren ground just a few weeks prior is now covered in beautiful images of the sky. All I can hear is the excited chatter of the boys pointing out the new things that catch their eyes and the loud put, put, put of our wagon. It was a successful day in more than just one way. The boys held on tight to their bags with brand new shoes in them. And I held on to my bag with a new pair of shoes as well. This may seem like a minor accomplishment. But, I’m quite excited. You see, here in Bangladesh, women don’t have the same size foot as I do. Just last week we took a trip into Dhaka to spend a few days getting some supplies with the Waids. Mrs. Waid wanted us to have a chance to get a few keep-sakes before we headed home. So, as Mrs. Waid shopped for a pair of shoes for her daughter, I browsed around as well hoping I could find a pair for such a good price. ($2) We went into many stores and in each one, I came out of with no shoes but a new story that just made me laugh. In one place, the seller came up to me holding a big men’s dress shoe. He had this smirk on his face and I could tell he was offering this shoe to me cause my feet appeared way to big for any of the women’s shoes. I just laughed and went on to the next place. I quickly scanned the shoes trying to find one that might be able to match with my wide feet. I found one and asked if they had a big size and the man quickly sent a worker to look in their storage. He came back a few minuets later and pulled out the biggest size they carried. The seller carefully helped me put my foot in the shoe, as they love to do. My foot actually went all the way in, which didn’t happen very often. But, my toes stuck out over the front and my heel didn’t quite stay inside the back edge of the flip flops. He, however, thought differently. With a smile on his face he put his right had on my toes and his left on my heel and pushed towards each other till the shoe looked like a good match for my foot. He said with excitement, “Yes yes! Very good! It fits!!” I had to just laugh and tell him I wouldn’t be needing that pair of shoes. 

So now today, I’m holding a new, Bangladesh pair of flip flops. They fit just perfectly and I only paid about $2 for them. They have nice little poka-dots on them and you might not be able to tell that they are..... men’s flip flops. =)

A Lion in the Tunnel

It starts quiet. Then grows louder and louder as the minuets pass. A slow rumble. Then a loud explosion reverberates through the whole sky. Another burst answers the first and the conversation continues. I’d love to go up on the roof right now. It’s so tempting. But we’re by far the tallest building around and I’m not quite sure if they have a lightning rod. So, I decided to enjoy it at my window. I feel like I have a huge strobe light all around me. It’s constant lightning. When I see the lightning bolts, they seem to linger in the sky for a few seconds. After they burst, the remains look like embers glowing in a fire. The small glowing spots disappear as they fall out of the sky. The thunder soon follows. It sounds like a huge lion roaring in a tunnel. It echos through the sky and I feel it rumbling in my chest. What a fantastic storm. The lightning continues to flash, and then the rain starts to pick up. I hear the wind growing loader and loader as it howls trying to get through my windows. The rain comes with it. All of a sudden rain starts hammering my windows. Some manages to sneak through the cracks. My view becomes blurred as water pours onto the glass. With the rain comes a wonderful fresh smell. The dirt is being washed away and the scent comes sweetly into my room. The rain only lasts for a few minuets but then the wind grows stronger. Screaming at me to let it inside. I LOVE THIS!!!. Our door doesn’t have a latch on it so we have to shut it with a table up against it to keep it from opening. But this wind forces the door open making the table squeak across the floor. I go to shut the door and lean my whole body weight up against the door. And guess what!? The wind still pushes the door open!!! This is incredible. Can I just say I love storms. Well, maybe that’s an understatement! The wind lasts a while. But too soon after it starts, it begins to die down. The lightning goes away and the thunder follows close behind. The rain stops giving the plants a much needed shower, and the wind slinks away into the night. 

What a storm! Just like the rain making the earth fresh and clean, my soul has been renewed and my joy is heaping! Thanks for the epic reminders of your love, God! My heart overflows.

Slop, Splatter, Speckle

Splat! A glob of cold, yellow, and gooey turmeric gets smeared all over my cheek. I’m at, what they call, a turmeric party. It’s the custom here to have one for a couple that is getting married. Let me share how this glob of goop got stuck on my face. The turmeric party is for the families and friends of the bride and groom to give their blessing as they’re leaving their villages. So, typically, they don’t smile. (and even through the wedding they don’t really smile either.) Anyways, they decorated a booth made out of bamboo with bright orange and yellow colors. All the women wear bright orange and yellow saris too. Then, the women start the program by grabbing some big metal water jars and filling them up. But they walk all around with these jugs. When they come back they all gather around and pound a big nut like thing and break it into pieces. Only the girls get to eat this. Apparently if you eat it, you will get married soon. Huh. After that, they start crushing the turmeric and other spices until it becomes a paste which they put on a banana leaf as seen in this picture. 

 Then the bride and groom come in. But, they don’t walk in, they get carried in by a friend or relative. They get seated inside the booth and the party officially begins. A special dance and then a prayer were at the beginning. Then the smearing starts. First the mothers and immediate family members go up to the bride and groom and smear smooshed spices all over. Some people get braver than others as to wear they put the spices. 

Once you have taken a turn at putting spices on them you still have some in your hand so what are you gonna do with it? Well, that’s how people get yellow glop on their cheeks, arms and necks. The ones that want to get involved sneak up on people and smoosh it all over. It’s a lot of fun! If you know me well, you would know that I love to get messy and this would classify. I loved it. =) My face didn’t get covered as much as most people. I blame it on my height. I caught a few people even jumping to get to my cheeks. hehe. It was definitely a fun and memorable evening. 

Now, today was the wedding. They had it much like a US wedding. Mrs. Waid coordinated it and she let the bride wear her wedding dress. It must be super special for her because this is the fourth wedding her dress has been worn in. She is like a mother to so many over here. (They all call the Waids “Mom and Dad”.) 

The wedding was quite short and simple (they only chose the date two weeks ago) so not much time to get super elaborate. It was a nice wedding though. A few hours after it was done, they had the reception. Rice and curry was served and wow, was it tasty. =) 

These are their reception clothes.

Well, that’s how it all happened. There’s still a bit of yellow stains on my finger nails. 

WOAH! We just had an earthquake! It was small don’t worry! But it happened!

Anyways, I love you all and miss ya!

Joy

It’s Friday night, I’m sitting in vespers with kids cuddled in my lap and snuggled all around me. The song service starts and they sing some of their favorites. As they continue to sing their energy grows. I love to listen to them sing. Their powerful voices carry the melody so loudly and in keys that are way higher than what their voice ranges are. This makes it difficult to sing along, but it makes a smile grow on my face. The kids sing with their mouths open as wide as they can possibly get them and their faces have a look of sincerity and intensity. One of the boys sometimes crosses his eyes and tilts his head back and forth, singing with gusto. It’s the cutest thing. When the electricity shut off and the room went completely dark, the voices sounded even louder! They truly sing their hearts out, and my heart is overflowing. 

                 Happy Sabbath!

A Trip to Nepal!

Spontaneity.  Something I love. And this past trip had a lot of spontaneity in it. I had the most amazing 8 days in Nepal. About four days before we left I bought the tickets. It was a spur of the moment trip. I have always wanted to see the Himalaya Mountains especially Mt. Everest. One of my friends from Walla Walla, Jenny Sloop, is an SM at a hospital over there and she invited us to stay with her. It was so wonderful to hang out and have someone that knew the culture and some of the language. Since so many things happened that trip I’ll just give you the highlights of the trip. Sorry, I keep doing this bullet format. ;)

First of all, a few things I noticed about the country. It was wonderful to see Nepal. The country is a lot cleaner than Bangladesh and the people are so friendly! Since it’s such a touristy country, a lot of the people know English so it wasn’t hard to get help if we needed. The people are beautiful! And they carry such heavy loads on their backs but it’s supported by a band that comes to their forehead. I was amazed at the strength of there necks and backs.

Everything is so hilly there so they plant their gardens on terraces. All the hills around have homes just kickin it on the side. It’s so pretty though! Ok now for the adventure.


Day 1

• Flew in and saw a decent view of the mountains. (it’s really smoggy this time of year so it was a little hazy but the mountains were still amazing)
• Meet up with Jenny and took the 1 hour bus ride back to Bonepa where the hospital is. 
• Played soccer with some of the 12-15 year old boys that she’s friends with. (they are hilarious)
• Ate a wonderful home cooked meal at Jenny’s great Aunts house. She made cinnamon rolls. Yumm!

Day 2

• Looked in our guide book to figure out what we’d accomplish in the next few days
• Decided to spend the night in Katmandu and take an early bus to Pokarah the next morning
• Ate dinner at the really awesome restaurant. They had black lights all over and their paintings and decorations were all florescent so they glowed with the lights. We sat cross legged on the floor with the low tables and I ate fabulous pumpkin soup and mint lemonade. 
• Then stayed in a hostels attic it seemed. It was the only room on the last level that had creaky stairs that led up to the door. It was actually really nice for only 5 dollars. 

Day 3

• Took a canoe ride across the lake and hiked up a hill that had a Buddhist temple on top and watched the sun set over the Himalayas. When we got back to the canoe our “guide” had decided to go home so he just left us one paddle and one life jacket. It took us awhile and we didn’t have the most straight path back but we had a lot of fun on the way. 

Day 4

• Got up at 4:45am to hike up a hill to see the sunrise. It was a steep climb but totally worth it. The sun kissed the top of the Anaporna range with a bright orange glow. And it slowly snuck it’s way down to the foothills. Absolutely beautiful!

• Ate breakfast with water buffalo grazing about a foot away from our table
• Took a paddleboat out on the lake for a few hours. We watched the many paraglider soar and then land on the lakeshore. 
• Had a banana smoothie for dinner. 

Day 5

• Got the last seats on the bus to Chitwan. These “seats” were a bench right behind the drivers seat and facing the first row of real seats. It was about a 5 hour, windy drive to Chitwan but really pretty. The country side changed from mountainous to more flat and jungle like. 
• Got to Chitwan and found out our “cottage” wasn’t much to write home about. It had stains on the floor and a pretty dirty bathroom. But it was cheep, a place to stay, and a memory. 
• Then we spent the next few hours trying to figure out what we should do the next day and how we could get the best deal. We were so tired of hearing everyones speech about why their tour is the best. We were drained so we went to have dinner at a garden restaurant.
• We rented bikes for about 30 cents/hour and went to see the Elephant breeding center which turned out to be so depressing. The elephants were chained to stakes in the ground and their front feet were chained together so they couldn’t even walk around. And the baby’s were chained so they couldn’t get close to their mom. It made me so sad. 
• Got up early to catch the bus to Pokarah. When we got there, a swarm of taxi drivers come and try and get us to go in their taxi. Then once we choose a taxi, a hotel rep comes with us to try and get us to go to their hotel. We ended up not going to the place we had chosen before and went to the hotel they were selling us. It was such a good idea on our part. They gave us a super good deal for our really nice room (another $5/night room) that could have easily sold for $30/person. The hotel workers were so helpful to us and tried to get us good discounts on all the things we wanted to do.

Day 6

• Went on a Jungle Safari. But the cool thing about it was that it was on the back of an elephant! Yup! It was quite exciting. I saw a rhino and her baby, some monkeys, deer, and wild pigs. The trails were small so the branches would rub up against my shins. But, I felt what it must be like to be an animal crawling through bushes trying to find their dinner. 

• In the afternoon we took a “jeep” safari to see if we could see some tigers. No luck. But the ride was very entertaining with the two little boys and their dad from England. We did see some more monkeys and a crocodile as well as a Tiger and her cubs footprints, but that’s the closest we got. 
• Sat at a restaurant with a fire to warm up from the very cold jeep trip. 

Day 7

• Got a stomach bug and was sick all day...
• But we went back to Banepa on the buses. (it took until that night to get back)

Day 8

• Had a day at Jenny’s house playing Dutch Blitz, Uno and other games with the younger boys that live there. It was so fun to have a relaxing, chill day just to hang out. 

Day 9

• Ate at a fantastic Mexican restaurant in Katmandu before heading to the airport. 
• Flew back with a wonderful view of the mountains as the sun cast a glow on the whole range. 
• Most importantly I had a wonderful view of Mt. Everest! =) yay! 

The trip was so great! And we did it all for less than 20 dollars a day for food, lodging, traveling, and the touristy tours! This blog has gotten a lot longer than I expected. But I hope it gave you an idea of the adventure that I went on. 
Happy New Year to you! I miss you all!

FIRE!!!

Twas six days before Christmas and all through the campus all the children were napping, yes, even the teachers. 

There bellies were full with the rice and the curry, and they lay there head down to rest from the scurry. 

When up from the haystack there rose such a clatter, the word that was spread was, “Get up! There’s a FIRE!” 

All came from their rooms and looked up, to see all the smoke filling up the now darkening sky. 

I jumped to my window to see what’s the matter, and saw from my perch the flames start to scatter. 

I threw on my shoes and ran down to see, if I could help carry buckets of sand or of water. 

The caregivers, guards, cookers, and teachers, they all came to help with this now leaping fire. 

I helped calm the flames with the buckets of water, the smoke burned my lungs just like many others. 

After buckets of sand and of water besides, the fireman came with their hose of great size. 

We all worked together to to pull the hay out, yes, out of the pile looking like a smoke spout. 

Lots of throwing, and spraying, and soot in the face went into this afternoon of such disgrace. 

When all smoke was gone, and the hay strewn about, we were covered in ash but put out a great shout. 

Thank you God for protecting our campus so small and letting it burn only the hay for the stall.

you can see the banana trees behind were singed as well

This was once a neat hay stack, now it's all over

soaked with soot and water, my pants were once white. =)

Independence Day

Brightly colored flags lined the fence and the kids excited voices could be heard all around. December 16 is Bangladesh’s Independence Day. The teachers had planned a special day for the kids. They call it “Sports day”. I could see excited smiles on every face, from the young ones to the caregivers and even the guards. They flew their Bangladesh flag on a very tall bamboo stick and in the grassy area they had chalk circles and lines for the various games. To start out the day of games, they separated the kids in 4 different groups depending on their age. (They would compete within these groups.) All the groups lined up in single fill lines looking like an army ready to march.

 After singing their national anthem, the races began. The first, was just a simple running race. It took awhile to get through all the groups because they did a caregiver group, teacher group, and guard/other men group besides the four kid groups. The first, second and third place winners got to stand on podiums that were created from bricks. It reminded me a lot of the Olympics. 

After the running races they had frog hopping races, musical chairs, and a hilarious game where they had tied candies to a string. Then they tied the kids hands behind their backs and had them run over to the string and they’d have to jump up and try and catch a candy in their mouth and pull it off the string to win. The kids had a lot of fun with this one and it was so cute to watch all the kids jump with their mouths open wide toward the sky.

 A few weren’t used to loosing in games like musical chairs where they had to be pulled out, and they started to cry. I took the ones who were crying to sit down, but I think it didn’t help to have them all together cause they would start to stop crying and then hear the other crying and start all over. But for the most part everyone had such a blast. After the games were done, they did a reenactment of the “Freedom Fighters” fighting for independence against the Pakistani's. They painted mustaches on a few boys to play as the Pakistani fighters and they had the freedom fighters in bright orange. Everyone enjoyed watching.  

In the afternoon they had an awards ceremony. For the program, we were asked to dance again. Two other dances, some poems and a song made up this program. Then awards were handed out for the different groups. Prizes varied from candy, to hair clips, to handkerchiefs, to toy airplanes. Everyone had such a good time and you could see it in their eyes. It was a new and fun way to celebrate. 

Volleyball, Weddings, and Caterpillars

It’s been a while since I last blogged. I do confess that too many things happened on my last trip so I put off the story telling and now it’s been so long. So I’ll just share some of the highlights of the trip. First, the purpose of the trip was to go to a wedding and to hand out “pocket money” as they call it to the students sponsored by BanglaHope. We ended up at the Adventist College near Dhaka. And we traveled down south to one of the schools down there. Anyways, here are some snippets of the trip. 

• I got to play volleyball with a group of the guy teachers at the college. (I guess here in Bangladesh, girls don’t play volleyball.) Then I got to play a second time down in the South with another group of students and teachers. This time it was a lot more intense. They had speakers set up with an announcer and music playing in the background. It was so fun. 
• At the college, we were hanging out with some of Banni’s friends and I saw a guy, tall for Bangali’s, having his friend take a picture of him next to me while my back was turned. I turned around while the picture was being taken and they started laughing. I knew what they were doing and I laughed too. But one of the friends interpreted that he had placed a bet with his friends saying that he was taller. He had bet 100 taka! So I told him he could come stand side by side just so he could see. I was about an inch or two taller and everyone let out a burst of laughter. It was quite entertaining. I’m pretty sure he was shocked to see a girl that was taller than him. 
• Our bus tire exploded as we went over a bump. 
• Drank fresh coconut milk for the first time. And got to see them pick them as well. 
• Ate more delicious curry.

• Had a spider the size of my opened hand in our bathroom.
• Saw a frog smaller than a penny
• Rode on a Launch and a Ferry. Both were packed as full as they could get. 
• Helped to cut some vegetables with they’re knife.

• Went to a wedding where the marriage was arranged. But even more crazy was that he is from Korea and she was from Bangladesh. They don’t know each other’s language and both speak a very tiny tiny bit of English. They met 4 days before their wedding! They are brave! The wedding ceremony was a lot like American SDA weddings because they were SDA. Not much was different.

• Went to a Bangladesh amusement park and water park. So fun to see their reaction to the “roller coasters” and water slides. They had one room called “Ice Land”. It was so fun to see their faces as they walked on the floor that was all covered in ice. They had never seen it before. =) The rides would have been little kid rides in America but we were having such a blast! The Water park was different. We went in our clothes since they don’t wear bathing suits over here. It was so crowded and I didn’t really wanna think about how dirty the water was. Luckily we didn’t get any strange sickness or disease from that. The park was quite an experience to say the least. 

Those were the man things that went down during the trip. Now, These are the things I’ve been up to since then. 

• Teaching English, Math, Art, and PE
• Playing with the kids. Today I got on the Seesaw along with 12 other laughing kids! It was a good leg work out!
• Had a poisonous caterpillar crawl into bed with me and decide to sleep on my arm. (at least that’s what their guess was.)
• Made pumpkin bread.
• Learned how to make chapattis
• And lit my Christmas Tree Candle numerous times. =)

So that’s what I’ve been up to the last month. Sorry I had to write in bullets, but that’s what happens when I haven’t been keeping up with blogging. 


Time is going by so fast here. Today is the mark of 3 months here. I only have 3 left and I have a feeling they’ll be even faster then the past months. I’ll let ya know what happens next and hopefully I’ll be better about posting it. Happy Holidays to all! =) 

Of Sickles and Cells...

The sharp sickle made a clean slice as it cut through the small bundles of rice grass. The early morning sun puts a deep golden orange glow on the already gold stalks. A smoky haze is over the rice fields as we begin to cut. As I’m bent over, I can hear the sounds of the other sickles crunching and crackling through the golden stalks. I am so excited that I finally get to do this!
It’s a BanglaHope tradition to have as many people from the orphanage come out on the first day and help start the rice harvest. So all the staff, some of the caregivers, and the first and second graders all come and help. Everyone just finds a spot at the beginning of the paddy and blazes their own trail through the field.

The sickles are so sharp it doesn’t take any sawing back and forth to cut the rice. Just one swipe and it’s through. The rice grows in bundles and we could average about 3 to 4 bundles across as we moved ahead. When a rhythm was created, we could get moving pretty fast especially if a little competitiveness kicked in. (maybe the competitiveness was just me. hehe) When we got a handful we just laid it neatly behind.

Then someone else came tying them all up and handing them to the kids who carried them to the awaiting carts. We did about four paddies in about an hour. But the experience was so worth it! I have to say that the laborers that do it all day, bent over in the hot sun have my respect. It’s not an easy job but being able to do it for a few hours was a blast!

People Watching... Wait... They're Watching ME!

We’ll we took a trip into the nearest big town, Panchbibi. We took the three wheeled, flat bed cart, which is now named Mr. Puffin Toot. Anyways, Kelsey and I sat on the back. This trip was so fun. I have so many stories just from the six hours we were away. So since I don’t feel like writing them all in one big story, I will make them into bullet stories. All of these stories are about the people here and how they interacted with us. =)

• As I said, Kelsey and I were on the back of Mr. Puffin Toot with our legs swinging freely. It’s an exciting ride since you can’t see what’s coming ahead. We just see what everyone does after we pass. Sometimes, when we pass guys on bicycles we can tell they start pedaling faster and a huge smile comes across there face. Some make an effort to stay so close to us and will come inches from brushing their front wheel against our knees. We got a chuckle out of a few that stuck with us for a ways and decided to make a story of why they were trying so hard to pedal after us. One even tried several times to get close enough to ask us where we were from. Finally after a few miles he asked us the second time and we replied “Bangladesh”. He thought that was funny but then began to pedal less and less until he was too far behind to catch up. I guess that’s all he wanted to know. 
• We passed many groups of children playing on the side of the road. Some playing badminton, some football (soccer), some just talking with each other. Two boys as we passed got the biggest smile on their face and started sprinting after us with their badminton rackets still in their hands. I was quite impressed how fast they could run and how long they kept up with us. Another group of kids started singing so loud as soon as they saw us. Another group of older kids pointed energetically at us and as they did they said, “How are YOOOUUUUU!” and then laughed and danced about. A little girl saw us pass and gasped and said loudly, “OH! Baba!!” Which is the Bangali equivalent to “oh my goodness!” or something of that sort. Then she realized that she said it loud enough for us to here and giggled as she timidly hid behind a friend. 
• I was looking for a birthday gift for Banni at a small shop. Two men were chatting with the owner and as I came over to look at the stuff in the counter, I saw out of the corner of my eye that one of the men looked down at my feet wide eyed and then up to my head. Then nudged his friend to look at my feet and see that I wasn’t wearing any kind of heel. I find that many people look at my feet here just to see how much of a heel I should be wearing. Then when they see I’m only in flip flops, I can see their mouths drop and big grins come across their face. 
• While we were shopping, Mrs. Waid asked one of her Bangali friends to see if he could get a better price on one of the containers she wanted to buy. He would go into the shop by himself and see if it was just our skin color that was making the price go up. We waited out in an ally-sort-of-place and stood under a little grass shade shelter. After being there only one minute a crowd had started to gather. 10, then 20, then 30... I think there must have been 40 people there by the time we left. The Bangali that had come with us tried to get them to walk on by but only ended up convincing two people. So he just started to translate what they were all saying about us. A man that was leaning against one of the bamboo supporters told us that, “We never see foreigners, so when we do, we like to stand and watch them. It makes us very happy.” When we heard this, we chuckled. He saw and said, “See, they are happy and we are happy. So, it’s ok for us to stare at them.” An older woman made her excuse to be, “I am a woman. So I should be able to look at other woman.” After awhile of listening them talk back and forth to each other Mrs. Waid laughed and said to us, “Do you fee like monkeys in the zoo?” And she told the translator to tell them we were monkeys that had escaped from the zoo.       I must say these people are very friendly and they ones crowding around us were so entertained by just watching us stand there that they brought us chairs so we could sit while they watched us. After awhile, the man came back to tell us the price. He had gotten it a little cheaper for us. When we started to walk away we looked behind us and the whole crowd was following us like a parade. I felt for a second what Jesus must have felt like as He walked through towns. Always having His disciples and others following behind Him. No wonder why he went by Himself to pray!

• Now, a short story on road conditions. The roads here vary. There are some that are way better than what I would have expected. And actually well kept. These are in the big cities, like Dahka. When you get out closer to where we are it’s still not too bad but there are pot holes you need to swerve and miss sometimes. And then when you get into the villages there are dirt paths that they drive down. I’m not going to even call them roads. They are quite fun to ride on. It’s like off roading while going as fast as you can, while you try and figure out which side of the path might be a better choice. We had to laugh at the road repairs here. When there is a hole that is really big or deep, they will dump a pile of bricks in there. It definitely makes the hole less deep but it doesn’t make it smoother, that’s for sure. 
• One last story. This one happened today actually. We went to visit the village school, which is walking distance from the orphanage. They were having a “picnic” and we were invited. Here a picnic just means a day of playing games. So we went with the Waids. One thing about Bangali’s is that if you have guest come over, you need to feed them food. So when we arrived they took us into their house. (The school teacher and wife stay’s in a house attached to the school) They gave us fruit, fried egg with cauliflower, this funnel cake type stuff, and palau rice. The funnel cake thing was very interesting. It tasted like deep fried sweet dough but when I bit into it, there was little droplets of sugar water that came out. They make it by frying dough and then put it in a pot of boiling sugar water.  Usually Bangalis don’t like sweet things, but I guess this is an exception. Anyways, we visited for awhile and then started back. When we were almost back home, we met two of the women that work at BanglaHope coming the opposite direction. We asked them where they were headed and they said to make rice flour. I asked if we could join them. Wow! I’m so glad I got to watch! They went into the village real close and went to a friends home. All the houses are made of mud. And this rice flour maker is made into the mud house floor. It’s about 6 feet long. The was it works is there is a big hole in the ground where you put the rice. There is a big log on a level contraption. At the end of the level there is a pounder that goes into the hole. They make this hammer go up and down by pushing the other end down with there leg while gravity does the rest of the job by slamming down into the hole with the rice in it. It took about 30min or so to completely grind about a gallon of rice. We got to help make the flour. It was so fun to see and to help. I would have taken a picture but I didn’t have a chance to grab my camera before we left. So hopefully the description makes sense. Maybe I can get a picture later if we go back sometime. 
  
  
  Well hope you enjoyed a few more stories about what I’m experiencing over here. We’ll be going on another adventure on Tuesday. We’ll go to the village schools in the South and then up to Dhaka to see a wedding. So there will be more stories coming in a week or so. 
  Hope that each of you are having a wonderful November! Enjoy the fall leaves! =D