Papri is probably about 28yrs old and has been teaching for quite some time. While she is Bangladeshi, her tribe is considered different from the mainstream Bengali culture. The tribe, called Garo (not to be confused with go-ru, meaning cow lol), is from the north-east part of Bangladesh, just under China. That's why, in my opinion, Papri looks Chinese :) She's told me before that sometimes when she goes to Dhaka people don't believe that she's Bengali and remain convinced she's a foreigner.
When I say that Papri is full of life, I mean it! She is one of the loudest people on campus and you can really hear her about a mile away! She's always joking, always singing Hindi songs, and dancing. Going for a walk with her through the rice fields on Sabbath afternoon, in fact, is like recreating a Hindi film. I love her to death. Since she's not married, she keeps asking me if I will come back for her marriage sometime in the future--I tell her, I hope so Papri but I don't know... This last week, she's been telling me not to go home and how much she will miss me. I know that to be true because when we first got here, all she could talk about was Ryan and missing him. So, for all future SM's to Bangla Hope, get ready to hear all about me :) lol it comes with the territory![Quick side note: last night we had a CRAZY wind storm! I woke up at 3:45am because I had to pee and I couldn't believe how the wind was howling through the vents in our apartment. I had to go outside and pick up the laundry that had been blown off the line, but thankfully not off the balcony, but everything was so pitch black that I couldn't see what the wind was doing to the trees. I even went outside our front door that faces the orphanage and couldn't see anything. It was incredible. It sounded like it was raining too but it wasn't. I guess it was just my deep-rooted BC spirit who's only seen one day of rain in 6months that was hoping for some kind of precipitation.]
So today was technically the last "normal" day here. Tomorrow a bus full of 27 people arrives sometime in the evening. Oh dear. Though they are only here til Sunday (they are heading South to do medical and dental clinics), Dad will be here so that doesn't count as "normal". We now have four beds in our living room, two in our spare bedroom, and Elliot's bed was taken out to be put somewhere else. Everything's changing... :( If you know me at all, you know that doesn't always go over very well.
Hence the apprehension, the anxiety, and the strange feelings of possessiveness I'm having. I don't WANT to share MY kids in the last few days that I have with them :P I want everything to stay the same, though I'm finding frantically clawing at the hands on the clock doesn't help. Please don't misunderstand me, I'm happy these people are coming over to help but I can't help but feel... well possessive.
Peace. Find peace.
I did a major clean sweep today of our room as they were taking Elliot's bed out. I'm trying to downsize starting now so packing for home will be easier. I'm a pack rat--I've kept everything. But not everything will fit in a scrapbook, let alone a suitcase headed for home. By the way Dad, I'm counting on you to be the voice of reason (aka "You don't need that at home") when you get here because I'm going to want to keep everything! In the cleaning process, I was relieved to find the two missing art projects though in a box under the sink. All the projects are neatly set aside, all started and waiting to have the finishing touches placed. I hope they will get used or this is just a big waste of time lol.
On the bright side of life, I now have Mozilla and iTunes!! Yay, I tried to get Mozilla a couple days ago but it was "too big" at 8MB to download. But I kept my computer open most of today downloading both. iTunes alone took 6hrs to chew through the 94MB .exe file. Good times with slow Bangladeshi internet. It actually just finished downloading and guess what I'm listening to? "I Gotta a Feelin'" by BlackEyed Peas... "I gotta feeling that today's going to be a good day..." Yes, yes it will be. Everything's going to be okay. ahhh it's so nice to have music back in my life. Now I just need Skype and my movie player and I'll be content!
Tomorrow Brittni and I are waking up early to go make dhal with Shati so I should get to bed... And then the flood gates open and 27people come and nothing will ever be the same again... awesome. lol
ami tomake bhalobashi
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