of bumpy road trips and boat rides in Southern Bangladesh

Yesterday was the hardest day yet in Bangladesh. Before I get into that, I should probably tell what led up to my hardest, longest, and most exhausting day as an SM. Monday morning, bright and early at 4am, ten of us plus a rental company driver loaded into a twelve passenger van. Elliot, Banni, and I got the unfortunate privilege of riding in the very back of the van. Mr. and Mrs. Waid were in the bench seat a head of us with Brittni and the Swegles (and American couple that markets Pollywog, another handicraft business) were in the front seat bench with Litton. I spent the 10hr trip trying to sleep on the bumpy roads and when that failed I turned to Ingrid Michaelson, Joshua Radin, and Jack Johnson on my iPod to keep me company. We stopped a couple times to use the squat pots, get gas, and once for fresh naan but the trip was still brutally long cramped in the back seat.

Our first stop in the South was to KMMS (Kellogg *something* Memorial Seminary I think) which is a pretty big SDA boarding school. We walked around the campus and smiled at the students as they ran by giggling in their neat uniforms. Banni introduced us to a student named Beejoya. I don't think I've told you about Joya yet on this blog. She is a 15year old girl that lives at the orphanage here and helps out with Handicrafts here. From what I understand, her story is she was alone at her family's home when a man broke in and raped her. She got pregnant and her family kicked her out. She came to BanglaHope and had her baby here. Little Desiree was less than a month old when we first arrived, which means Joya was only 14 when she was raped. The Beejoya we met at KMMS was her twin. Beejoya hadn't seen her sister since she was kicked out so we showed her pictures of her little niece that she's never met.

Maybe I don't have the whole story but I have a problem with this. I know I don't understand Bengali culture quite yet but I can't believe a family would kick their daughter out after such a traumatic experience. Moreso, Joya wants to go back to school soon and is going to give Desiree to BanglaHope to raise. But Joya can't go back to KMMS. They won't take her back. Again, how is that showing the love of Christ if a poor girl can't rejoin her family when the whole situation wasn't her fault. I was really upset after visiting KMMS to say the least.

We slept at another village school while we were there. Us four girls shared a room and the Swegles got their own small room that had three beds. We had to string mosquito nets but even so, Elle got 7bites on her elbow and 5 on the PALM of her hand. No where else really. How does that happen? And I'm pretty sure our beds were old wooden doors that someone put a two inch foam on. But that's Bangladesh! You gotta be grateful for whatever you get!

The next day, we went to town for a breakfast of japatees (sp?), which were thoroughly delicious, at about 7am. Then we walked down to the river dock and waited for the ferry. We got into a small, unsturdy wooden boat that resembled something like what you would see in Venice. Except it was severly dilapidated and steered by a thin old Bengali man with only one eye. Also, we had to perch perfectly on the side, making sure the weight was as even as possible so that we didn't end up in the drink.

The man took us about 15min down the river to a beach where we unloaded onto the muddy clay surface and then walked to the first of three village schools we would visit that day. They were so sweet there! Students from the school came up to us with handmade necklaces made from flowers on the campus. Mine had beautiful bright red hibiscuses that smelled so sweet. The teachers gave us fresh coconut (and when I mean fresh, I mean they picked a green coconut off the tree and chopped part of the top off) so we could have some cold coconut water. It's unlike anything I've ever had--neither good nor bad, just interesting. When the water was gone, they took the coconut, split it open, and formed part of the shell into a primitive spoon. I got to taste what fresh, fresh, fresh coconut is like. That stuff is slimy. While not completely awful, I passed mine off to Brittni to finish.

After a couple pictures, we headed back in the river to get to the next school. Banni stood on the boat and Mr. Waid was on the beach, but even though I was holding both of their hands I slipped and almost ate some mud pie. They caught me and I just got mud up my leg. Thick, dark, slimy mud :P yuk haha. This time we had to go upstream so Jason and Litton grabbed paddles and helped out our ferry man. It took us longer to get back but when we got back to our dock, we jumped back in the van and headed to another part of the river (about 30min away on THE bumpiest road you will ever travel on--I'm talking three foot holes in the middle of a bridge, so narrow that you are hitting trees branches on either side, and almost getting lost in massive holes on the side). We traded in the dilapidated wooden beast for a motorized and more sturdy boat. It was about the middle of the day and we were straight up melting. It was so hot out and there was barely any breeze. Plus, we are all wearing long pants and long, cap-sleeved shirts. Ah it was awful.

The second school was smaller but still kept up well. We didn't stay long there, mostly long enough to take a couple pictures, eat a banana, and say hi to the students. Have you heard of Two-Bite Brownies? Well these were Two-Bite Bananas :) Smallest, cutest, and tastiest bananas I've ever seen.

Back in the boat. The third school was ready for us. I was the first one out and was given directions to just keep walking straight. As I came up to a building, I could see a couple uniforms waiting with flowers and just assumed they wanted to give us another lei. Nope. The entire school was outside, forming two lines that led to the entrance. As we walked through, they threw little flowers on us and sang "Welcome, Welcome how do you do?" Then they had us all sit on the deck outside the classrooms and gave us fans that the students had made from reeds. The students formed about 6 or 7 lines (like they do at camp every morning at the flagpole) and the teacher officially welcomed us to the school. He had students come up with beautiful flower leis and wonderful bouquets of bright pink, orange, and red flowers. The students proceeded to do their school motto and song. Seriously, the students were unlike anything I've seen--so well behaved and disciplined :)
After that, we got some pictures and teacher offered us lunch. We ate rice, dhal, potato bora, banana bora, and leek bora (bora is sooo yummy!). I ate a chili. I thought it was a green bean in one of the dishes that they prepared but I was sooooo wrong. This thing was about 3 inches long and even Banni said it was too hot for her. I really thought my head was either going to explode or just stop working. I've never had my whole head ache like that. And my poor mouth. Oh man. It was so spicy!

We were pretty tired on the way back so Elle and I chilled to music on my iPod. Elliot was the in-house DJ and after a couple of oldies but goodies, she put on Wannabe by the Spice Girls. We both started dancing so crazily in the back seat because who doesn't know the words to that song! It was such a great way to relieve the tension we were feeling from the day.

Which brings me to yesterday, the hardest day yet. We woke up early again, packed our stuff into the van, and headed out to yet another village school where we would be meeting the families to get the babies. Mr. Waid and Litton had to hire another van to take them to the city to get the NGO stuff figured out which gave us more room in our van. On the way to the school, we picked up two couples that each had a child they were giving to our orphanage. When we got to the school, we met two women there. Both had children with them, one with two small girls and the other with a small boy. The two women were married to the same man, but because one of the women had two girls, he refused to clothe or feed the small girls. The mother said that he had not fed her in the last three days either and was forcing her to go to work in the fields. Thus, she had to give up her two tiny girls. It was an awful scene because you could tell she didn't want to let them go.

Before we took the children away, they all had to be bathed and clothed with dresses we brought from the orphanage. Jason, our adoption manager, had told us we would be picking up 6 girls so we brought enough dresses, diapers, and formula for that number. Turns out we only had five children, one which turned out to be a boy as he was being scrubbed clean. We found a onesie for him that barely fit his 1yr 8month body. He had been taken care of by his grandfather--I'm not sure what happened to his parents.

I took especially to one mother and her baby girl. Her husband had gone mad and wandered for weeks on end so the mother had to go work in the fields and couldn't take care of her 10month daughter. The grandmother came along as well and spoke fairly good broken English. She asked me what I did in America. When I told her I was a student in university, she told me through tears that she wanted her granddaughter to go to university as well when she gets older. I sat with the mother as she held her daughter for the last couple minutes, crying softly as she cried, holding her hand through the pain. At one time, she looked up through tears and said "My sister" as she squeezed my hand resting on her knee.

When Mrs. Waid told me it was time to go, I stood up and the mother placed the baby wrapped in blankets in my arms. We were both crying softly. As we walked to the front of the school where the van was, I tried to stay close to her so that she could have as much time as possible with her daughter. When we were a couple paces from the van, she absolutely broke down in tears, covering her face with her orna. My name was being called from the van to hurry because the mother of the two girls was getting frantic. She was being held from crawling into the van to fetch her children. I walked to van but stopped when I felt a hand on my shoulder. When I turned, it was the grandmother who told me "Take care of her." I nodded my head and climbed into the van. The mother of the baby I was holding, put her hand on my knee through the sliding door and sobbed as she stared at her baby for the last time. Elliot, Brittni and I were all crying as the van pulled away. We did our best to soothe the babies in our arms that were crying for their families.

My beautiful girl didn't cry--instead she fell asleep. Elliot was holding the older sister and it took a long time for her to stop crying. Anytime she looked ahead to her sister, who was in Mrs.Waid's arms, they both started screaming and crying. Brittni was holding the boy, who wouldn't stop calling for his grandfather for the first hour or two. When things calmed down, we all tried to get the children to eat or drink something. All refused the bottle, spitting up any formula that made its way into their mouths. We were successful with cookies and mashed bananas on most. It was a long 10hrs. One of the babies were always crying--they seemed to take turns. At one point, two threw up but luckily, we didn't have any diapers to change. While seemingly lucky, that means they were all so dehydrated, especially the two sisters. When we were about two hours from the orphanage, the sun went down and the babies fell asleep.

The two sisters have a bad cough so they are staying in a separate room for now as to not get the other ones sick. My little girl is still not eating but she is drinking water now. The baby boy is staying in the boys room and will sometimes just sit and cry for his grandfather. The other little girl, one of the ones that threw up, came down with a fever last night and was taken care of by the nurse here. Mrs. Waid says it will take about a week for the new ones to stop crying and about three weeks for them to start playing and acting normal. I can't imagine what they are going through.

Elliot and I were talking about this experience after and what made it so hard. It was sad to take Amber from her family but it didn't hit you in the gut as hard as this experience did. Elle commented that it's because these mothers wanted their kids so badly--they weren't just being randomly abandoned. There is no Welfare in this country, no social service to plead to in these situations. The mothers recognized this is the best option for their babies.

That's the other thing I've noticed over here. These aren't orphans, they are abandoned. I got the case histories of most of the kids here at BanglaHope and very few of them are actual orphans. In most cases, one parent has gone mad and therefore is absent, or has had a stroke, or has run off to India and married someone else, or has been paralyzed by an accident or disease. I wonder how many kids would be here if there were programs set up to help these single or paralyzed couples keep their children. It's heartbreaking really...

ah sorry for the long email. It was a packed three days. I'll post more pictures soon on Facebook... well soonish :)
ami tomake bhalobashi