of Melanie and uncontrollable laughter

Allow me to introduce you to Melanie. Melanie was in my grade one class last year and is probably one of the oldest kids here. She is really smart and catches on to math and English really quickly. When I was teaching her, I'd always have to come up with things for her to do when she finished her assignments so much faster than everyone. I'd also have to quiet her down when we were reading because she would holler out the words and most of the kids would just follow her lead, never actually knowing what the word said for themselves.

Melanie just turned 8 this last January. She's been at Bangla Hope since she was four years old and has a darling little sister named Savanna here. When Melanie was first born, her mother and father were SO happy to have her. While her mother was pregnant with Savanna, their father got sick with jaundice. He died shortly after Savanna was born. The mother had to go back to work but wasn't able to provide for her two girls so she contacted Bangla Hope to take them. This is one of the sadder stories to me... Parents that WANT their kids so badly but can't keep them because of whatever life has thrown their way. :(

Melanie is doing so well though. She has broken into anger or rebellion as some of the children have. Instead, she is bubbly and outgoing, boisterous and loving. I think she's going to be a good leader for the other children--if she chooses to... She's almost at that stage where she can either choose to goof off or accept her wonderful smarts and use them to her benefit. She's such a special kid!
Today was a blur for me. Though it was Sunday, we still had classes to teach :P But even moreso, we all were doing the flight of the bumblebees in order to get the Handicrafts catalog finalized and printed so the Handicraft manager could take it home down south with her. The first printing proved disastrous--pages upside down and out of order... Bad news bears. The second one was better but there were so many things that needed to be edited. If you know me well, you know I love editing, finding spelling errors, and meticulously going through each detail. Ah, with pen in hand I sat for a good hour just going through page after page. Good times.

This evening we had another great badminton game: Josiah and Mr.Waid vs Ryan and me. We ended the night 2-2. We didn't have a championship game because I was just too tired and the bugs were coming out with a vengeance. You should see the stairwells in the morning. The floor is black. I'm not kidding--Dad you'll have to back me up when you get here because it's only going to get worse by the time you get here! When they sweep all the dead bugs into the corner, it looks like black fluff mimicking snow drifts along the wall. It's absolutely incredible. I tried to take video of it but it really doesn't do it justice. Needless to say, I swallowed four bugs whilst playing badminton and had two run up my nose. What they were looking for, I don't know.

Afterwards, we headed up to the Waid's apartment to play some 5 Crowns (basically a version of rummy, just with special cards). I lost as usual. The rest of the gang left just me, Ryan, and Mrs.Waid to play another round before bed. Oh my goodness. I haven't laughed that hard in awhile, nor have I seen Mrs. Waid half stretched out on the couch, tears rolling down her face, and dying with laughter. So funny. You really had to be there so I won't try too hard to explain the situation but some classic lines were: "Mrs. Waid, what are you trying to do with that Jack?" and "Mr.Waid gave me one of those hysterectomy's today and it helped." I said the first, Ryan actually said the second line (he meant to say anti-histamine, you can see how he messed it up lol). Nonetheless, even if you weren't there, it was an evening to remember, full of side-splitting laughter and some great one-liners.

Tomorrow I'm heading into Dhaka because I need to apply for an Indian visa for when Dad and I go to Delhi. I'm not looking forward to that experience again, but I'm making SURE that I have 30tk exactly so I don't have to fish around the waiting room for 5 and 10tk notes. I'll only be gone about a day--leaving tomorrow morning 5am and coming back Tuesday afternoon. One of the board members, Jim Brewer, if flying home so Mr.Waid will be with me in Dhaka too.

It's still crazy to me to think that in TWO WEEKS I'm going to be showing my dad a glimpse into the life that I've been living the past five months. TWO WEEKS. I know I've said this before, but oh how the time has sped by (and gone slow as molasses at other times) and now I'm leaving in about three weeks. That's just crazy talk. Dear me... I'm still undecided as to if I'm petrified of leaving this place or busting for joy to get home. What if it's both...

prayers appreciated!
ami tomake bhalobashi

p.s. My pictures of Melanie aren't uploading right now for whatever reason... Bad internet :P But I'll be in Dhaka tomorrow with mosquitos and high(ish) speed so I'll upload them then :)