Andy and Nic

The end of a chapter

2010-04-19T11:25:00.002+01:00

As I write this long-overdue posting I find myself reflecting on the last few weeks we spent in our beloved Bangladesh.

The memories that spring to mind are the noise of the cricket ground as Tamim scored a century as he went into bat against England in their 1 day international in Mirpur, the smell of the puri and shingaras gentling sizzling away as we rode past the road-side eateries on a rickshaw from our house to Road 27, the hooting of the horns as we sit in a traffic jam in the back of a CNG, the huge, warm, loving smiles that greet us as we walk through the door of a brother and sister's house or the noisy chit chatter of a group of eager women sitting on our lounge floor doing some craft activity at one of our sister's mornings. All these wonderful memories of a country that has occupied such a large place in our heart over the past 18 months.

The last few weeks in Bangladesh were, as you can imagine, rather chaotic to say the least. At the end of Feb / beginning of March, 2 friends from our church in the UK came to stay. One of the people in question had lived in Bangladesh before, so was fully prepared for the craziness of life in Dhaka and his wife very quickly got to grips with it, having endured the somewhat harrowing ride back from the airport and arriving to a house full of lovely ladies from our church in Dhaka, all sitting on the floor chatting away at one of sister's mornings.

As always, it was a privilege to be able to share our enthusiasm for this amazing country with friends and to explore some of the little gems of Dhaka.

We shared meals with colleagues from work, brothers and sisters from church and indulged in some of the Dhaka delicacies (yes; there are a few out there, believe it or not!). The hospitality which we were shown in that week was really an insight into what makes Bangladesh such an inviting country. I know we've said it on numerous occasions but we never cease to be humbled by the open-hearted generosity shown towards us by people in Bangladesh.

We also went on a staff outing to the cricket ground to see England's first 1-day International against Bangladesh. We paid £2 for 7 hours of sheer entertainment. You can't help but get swept up in the carnival atmosphere of the occasion, whether due to these little plastic hooters that everyone seemed to have a blow at any opportunity, or the ridiculous celebratory dances that one group indulged in every time Bangladesh did something worth celebrating, or the chanting for "Tamim Bhay" (Bhay = brother) when he went into bat, or even the men scurrying around the score board tower moving the numbers around as more runs were added. All of this, along with a very excitable group of Bangladeshis colleague went to make this a very enjoyable and memorable introduction to this strange cricketing world and also one of those very lasting memories of Bangladesh.

As if this wasn't exciting enough, we also found great amusement from a visit to the opticians (boring though it may sound, everything seems to turn into an adventure when you're doing the seemingly mundane things of life in a completely different culture). All 4 of us went en masse to the opticians to get some new specs for our friend (infinitely cheaper over here than back home). We entered the small glass-fronted shop, all sat down at the insistence of the manager and then the fun began. As our friend showed even the slightest interest in glasses, the man behind the counter felt it his duty as service-provider to get out a vast range of other pairs of glasses for our friend to try and when we had exhausted the range in the cabinet, out came the suitcases also full of various types of specs - everything from Calvin Klein to Armani; all the best genuine fakes, of course!

So, once the laborious task of choosing a set of specs was done, next came the obligatory bartering process, which was equally as fun. I can't remember how much we knocked him down by but I'm sure our white skin and obvious inexperience made us easy targets for some profit-making.

In fact we had so much fun engaging in this process that our friend's wife brought a pair of specs, which started the whole process off again and then Andy and I also decided to join in but just to get the most out of this unique experience, we thought we'd also capitalise on the £2 eye test that was on offer.

Perhaps had it not been teeming down with rain, hail, thunder and lightning we might have left with a few less pairs of glasses than we did but thanks to the totally unseasonal weather, and the cricket being shown on the TV in the shop we ended up leaving the shop almost 2 hours later complete with 4 sets of glasses, 1 pair of sunglasses and 2 eye test results - not bad really!

At the beginning of March a couple arrived, who were volunteering with Oasis for 1 month and who were also due to stay with us, so once again, we had the opportunity of introducing Dhaka to some fresh faces and spill more of our enthusiasm for it into some seemingly willing recipients.

This couple were mainly working with me on a project launched by STOP THE TRAFFIK, called Start Freedom, which is an initiative for secondary schools around the world to raise awareness of human trafficking and to mobilise young people to tell others about it.

We went into various schools teaching the lessons prescribed by STOP THE TRAFFIK and forging contacts in schools in order to pursue the project. We only targeted English Medium schools at the outset, as all the materials were in English. The uptake was amazing; I was so encouraged to see the children really engaging with this subject and being motivated to do something about it. At one school the children took it upon themselves to go into local slums and the villages to raise awareness to their peers about the dangers of human trafficking.

During our last couple of weeks in Bangladesh we took a trip up to Nilphamari to see the factory one last time and to say goodbye to the workers. As became a common theme with all of our 'goodbyes', this was a very emotional event. We went to our processing plant where the workers were busily stripping, cutting, soaking and slivering bamboo in an orderly row, seated on the floor. After a chat to the manager at the site and a look around, the workers stopped what they were doing, assembled in a circle and our dear friend and manager up there gave a very moving speech and presented us with flowers. There were a few tears and exchanges of fond farewells and then we left for the factory. At the factory, the same thing happened, although this time we were presented with a strip of bamboo signed by all the workers and a gift for each of us consisting of a brass plate, bowl a cup. We were so touched at this huge gesture - it really warmed our hearts.

We left the workers with a mixed feeling of satisfaction of having been a part of something so amazing that has really impacted these peoples' lives but also a sense of regret and heartache that we may not see these people again and that the role we had played in this story, up until now, has ended. It was really hard to believe that something that had played such a large part of our lives should so suddenly come to an end.

As we stood in that field looking at rows and rows of bamboo culms drying, with kids laughing and shouting in the background as they ran out of their bamboo school building and the hazy late afternoon Bangladesh sun beating down on us, it was hard to imagine life in the UK and what that would be like.

In the evening we went to a local fair with the Nilphamari manager, his wife, the pre-processing manager and his new wife and the factory manager. This was as strange as we had come to expect from Bangladesh. There were lots of stalls selling these sweet deep fried snacks that looked a lot like pretzels, tea stalls, other stalls selling items of jewellery and accessories, games, shows and the like - very much how I imagine fairs to be in Victorian Britain (although I may be way off the beaten track). One of the events we went to see was a large round wooden pit-type thing, where a motorbike went round and round it, with the audience at the top, getting ever closer to the top of the bit. I'm not sure whether I was more scared by the lack of any safety railing behind me, the rickety wooden ladder we climbed to get up, or the fact that the motorbike got so close he could snatch money out of the hands of people in the crowd. I think they have a lot to learn about health and safety!

Anyway, this very fun, slightly scary evening ended with a ride back to the village and a short stop to let off a sky lantern that we had brought. As we watched the bright sky lantern slowly drifting further and further into the night sky it seemed to be the perfect end to a perfect trip and chapter of our lives and I couldn't help but think that somewhere up there (and all around, in fact) God was smiling down on us, reminding us that whilst we have no clue where our lives may be headed and why on earth we would be drifting so far away from a country we love so dearly, He actually knows exactly what lies ahead and reassuringly has it all in hand.

We then returned to Dhaka on an overnight bus, arriving back home as dawn was just breaking and the newspaper boys were out on the streets sorting the papers and taking their stock to sell on the streets and at the traffic lights.

The following days proceeded in much the same way. Lots of farewell meals, farewell sweets that we came armed with to each house we went to and teary goodbyes. As we went from house to house saying goodbye to people it seemed to get harder and harder as we realised that this is another person, who has impacted our life greatly, that we may never see again.

We had a very lovely 'office goodbye', where we assembled for our extra special team lunch and were presented with some wonderful gifts from our colleagues and some very kind sentiments. We attempted, very feebly to return the sentiments, through blubs and streams of tears. Whilst it's lovely to hear that we will be missed, it also left us with a giant hole inside as the memories of the past 18 months came flooding into our minds and a knowledge that, as we sat with curry in hand amongst a circle of friends in our office in Dhaka, the people sat in those chairs were so different to the people who sat in the same chairs 18 months ago, awkwardly making conversation with this strange bunch of Bangladeshi folk. We realised the way God had shaped us through these wonderful people surrounding us (as well as all the brothers and sisters at church) and how much our lives had been transformed.

When we set off for Bangladesh, we set off with a desire to see transformation; we left looking in the mirror and seeing that the transformation we had witnessed was closer to home than we had expected.

Perhaps the saddest goodbye of all came from a brother at church and his wife, who after a long embrace, left on the words "well sister.....goobye". The words themselves are so few but behind them were feelings of a deep bond that had formed between the 4 of us, a reminder of the lessons of humility and servitude we had learned from this inspirational couple and a longing sense that this might be the last time we may see this couple again until Jesus returns. Suddenly, the world starts to feel very big.

The feeling of leaving Bangladesh was a strange one - whilst being excited to see friends and family again, there was a deep sorrow at leaving our beloved Bangladesh. The only way I can describe it is a feeling of numbness, like when you come home from the holiday of a lifetime and you know you have to go back to work the next day - you feel elated by the memories you've accumulated and the wonderful time you've had but then that sense of inevitable regret as you have to leave it all behind, knowing that actually the 'holiday' could never continue and those feelings of regret are only present because of the relatively short time you've broken away from the normal routines of life.

So, as that chapter of our life comes to an end, another exciting chapter begins, fuelled by the lessons, excitement and joy we experienced in "My Golden Bangladesh" (first line of the national anthem). We are looking forward to seeing what God has in store on this next part of our journey.

Thank you so much to all of you for being a part of our journey so far - we've loved every minute of the ride and all the more so for being able to share it with you.

May God richly bless you, as He has us.

Nic and Andy x x

Three Reasons why I like...

2010-02-11T06:31:00.007Z

Some things I like in Bangladesh and reasons why.

Buses in Bangladesh:
1) They're cheap - a 20-30minute trip will usually set you back about 15Tk (about 15p!)

2) There's normally lots of them - too many infact and it can be very confusing to know which is going where and when. Even though there's lots they're usually very very crowded... but this all adds the fun of the ride.
3) Mob Mentality (in a positive way!)- A man refuses to pay becuase he thinks he's too important so the rest of the bus shout at him until he gets off! Or, we (the smith family) get on and even though the conductor tells us how much to pay the rest of the bus wont let us because we're visitors! (Bus conductor was not happy!)

Still not ridden on top yet!! :(

The work I do:

1) Interesting and fulfilling from a professional point of view - I've developed a range of practical and business skills from slivering bamboo to production planning!

2) Its a social business - yes we're trying to make money but we're ultimately trying to give and keep people in employment who need it the most. We care for and value our workforce, hoping to see a positive impact in their lives - and its working!

3) The people I work with - they work hard, are dedicated, understand the values and concepts of what we're doing and are eager to make it work!

(there are more reasons but it wouldn't fit with the theme and I'd be here forever!)

Having a guard at your house:

1) He says hello in a friendly way every morning!

2) Looks after your shopping if you want to go on to some place else (saves you lugging it up the stairs)

3) Helps you park the car - I'm good with my mirrors but an extra pair of eyes is always useful!

Bangladesh Church:

1) We get to sit on the floor.

2) People are honest about what they are feeling and what they think. Which can be both annoying and likeable.

3) We always listen to and share others prayer requests at the end of the service (and we share lunch!)

Bamboo:

1) Properly managed it sooo sustainable (grows to maturity in 3/4 years - closest other is pine, which takes at least 7 or 8) - Bamboo grows up to 45feet in one year!

2) You can eat it, wear it, stand on it and make nearly everything from it (including coffins - www.oasisbamboocoffins.com)

3) It captures loads and loads of carbon dioxide (much better than the average tree!) So get planting!

Old Dhaka:

1) Its Chaos! - people, rickshaws, foods, sewage, vans, clothing, machine shops, banks, Christmas decorations, the river, the boats... its all happening in a hive of Chaos

2) Always something different to see - and people are always happy to show and talk about what they're doing

3) Boats - its been bread into me from a very early age!

Thanks for reading.... see you soon!

Andy

The Tale of Two Survivors

2010-01-29T03:59:00.007Z

Hi all,

I thought I would do a posting about a couple of trafficking survivors that I'm working with at the moment because I've been really touched by their lives and their stories. For confidentiality I won't use their real names.

In previous postings you may recall I referred to a girl called Reena. She was trafficked from Bangladesh in 2006 at age of 15-16 with the promise of a job in India. The offer turned out to be a false one and she was sold to a brothel in the red light district of Kolkata (biggest red light area in South Asia).

In February 2007 she was rescued by an organisation working in Kolkata. Reena gave her statement to the police, who subsequently arrested 4 people involved in Reena's trafficking (including the brothel madam).

After a few months staying in a shelter home in Kolkata Reena was repatriated back to Bangladesh. She then spent a few days in another shelter home before returning back to her father.

Since coming back to Bangladesh her father arranged for her to be married to a young man, who already has a wife and children. The father didn't tell of Reena's past until recently, which has caused problems in the marriage. Reena also found a job in a garment factory, which she has been working in since she returned. Sadly Reena's marriage has not been a particularly happy one - her husband is a drug addict and relies on Reena's income to feed his habit. He has a tendency to become violent, particularly when needing money for his habit.

We became involved in Reena's case last year when I went to visit her rescuing organisation in Kolkata. They had lost contact with her and the organisation who reintegrated her in Bangladesh couldn't locate her, so they asked if we would try and establish contact. They were understandably concerned about her welfare but also she needed to come back to Kolkata to give evidence in the trial against her traffickers.

We managed to make contact with her in around April 09 and since then we've had regular contact with her. Her trial was listed for May, then adjourned til June and then several adjournments later finally was listed for December 11th.

In order to get Ripa back to Kolkata we had to apply for a passport and visa, which was difficult in itself due to the many layers of red tape that exist here. Thankfully the Lord moved the hearts of the government officials to accept our various applications.

On 5th December Reena and her husband came to the office. She looked tired, malnourished, depressed and anxious. On 6th December my colleague took Reena to Kolkata on her first plane trip so she could give evidence.

On 5th January I went to Kolkata to collect Reena and was faced with a happy, much healthier, confident looking young lady. The transformation in her was amazing! I was greeted with a big hug, a huge grin and "Aunty, how are you? come and see where I've been staying...". I was then shown round the shelter home she was staying in and introduced to the other Bangladeshi girls staying there.

During her court case she had given very compelling evidence and managed to recall a lot of information with infinite accuracy and detail. The judge and police commended her for her evidence. She was extremely brave, particularly when coming up against cross examination and undoubtedly her evidence will form the pinnacle in the case against the traffickers. The verdict in the case has not yet been reached.

When Reena and I came to leave the shelter home she exchanged numbers with people in the home and said her goodbyes. It was so moving - all the other Bangladeshi girls wanted to know when they could come home, they were all anxious to tell me where they're from and if there's any news from their families. Of course we weren't really involved in their cases, so I couldn't say. I was particularly struck by one amazing young lady, who lives just down the road from us and was trafficked from that area. We have since met with her family and we're trying to get her 5-yr old daughter into a good school, so when her mum comes home she's got one less thing to worry about.

Reena and I then went to the airport. She displayed a mixture of anxiety and excitement whilst at the airport. The excitement was shown whenever it came to move on to the next stage of the airport process. She was up out of her seat grabbing her bags and mine and saying "Come on Aunty, let's go". When we sat in the airport lounge her eyes were wide with excitement and she was looking everywhere. She also had fun trying to teach me some of the Hindi she had learned during her time in India (but sadly I was a pretty bad student).

Whilst we sat waiting, I went off to buy a coffee and looked back at her sitting on her own. As a man approached to speak to her, the sense of responsibility I had suddenly dawned on me and I immediately became very protective of her - getting a real sense of her vulnerability.

As we sat on the plane ready to take off her anxiety kicked in. She held my hand and as the engines began to whir she squeezed even tighter and closed her eyes. That was when I realised what different worlds we both come from and how these worlds have now collided.

The following day Reena came into the office and was reunited with her husband. She was very excited to share with her husband of her experience and her husband was obviously proud of his wife's achievements. We spent the morning chatting to Reena about her future and we're now working to get her a place on a beauty training course, which she is very excited about.

We hope and pray as they begin this next chapter of their lives Reena's motivation and enthusiasm would continue, that she would grow and develop into the amazing woman she has potential to be and that she would be supported by her husband and his family in all she does.

This week I went to a shelter home in Jessore,in the south of the country, with my colleague, to visit another survivor, who returned to Bangladesh in October and who we have been supporting since.

She was trafficked by a local policeman but managed to escape when she reached Mumbai before being exploited.

We were encouraged by how well Sathi was doing. When we spoke to her a few weeks ago she was feeling very down and was anxious but when we saw her she was much more upbeat and her confidence has grown significantly.

Sathi comes from a very poor family. Before she was trafficked her husband had left her and married another woman and they are still living in the same village as Sathi.
Ever since we met Sathi she has been concerned about getting a good job to support her family and bring honour to them. She was educated to a reasonable standard but she has totally lost confidence to continue learning, since she's been out of education for over 10 years.

She's another remarkable woman - very caring, assertive, commands the respect of others and has good leadership skills. She feels a real sense of loyalty and responsibility to her family.

Sadly, since returning to Bangladesh, the village that Sathi is from have jumped to conclusions about what happened to her in India and they're insisting that she's an immoral woman and have consequently cut off Sathi's family from the village. The tormenting has become so bad that Sathi's brother has left home. This factor is only driving Sathi all the more to get a good job and succeed in life.

Whilst we were visiting her we managed to get a place for her in a good local clinic to get work experience as a birth attendant. Currently this position is unpaid but the director of the clinic is hopeful that it will lead to a paid position.

Sathi will have her first day in the clinic next week. We're really hoping a praying that this will be a time of blessing out of the darkness for Sathi and her family as she starts on this journey. She's still very concerned about getting an income but hopefully God will see to it that a paid position crops up soon.

We also took Sathi to see her sister in another clinic. She's had a tumour removed from her groin area and looked in a pretty bad way. Sathi immediately assumed the care-giver role when we arrived and whilst obviously being distressed it was good that she had the opportunity to spend time with her sister and mum.

We're praying that God will bless these two wonderful women in their new journeys in life and shine a light in their life after the darkness they have experienced.

Besides these two women, we've been out looking for the families of a couple of 11 year old girls who were trafficked from Bangladesh and are now staying in a shelter home in Mumbai. We're also trying to find a girl who absconded (or was taken) from the shelter home she was staying in in Mumbai - she is extremely vulnerable and there is a high risk of her being retrafficked, particularly as we suspect her family were involved in her trafficking.

I was also very privileged to be on a trip where we found the family of one of the girls I met in Kolkata. We managed to connect the girl with her family via a mobile phone and it was a particularly special moment when her daughter held the phone up to her ear and heard her mum's voice for the first time in 3 years. This is the girl I mentioned earlier, who we're now trying to support through education.

So, lots happening. Every day brings a new challenge but I'm so grateful that God has allowed me to witness some of the amazing miracles that are going on. we're hoping and praying for the day when all will be free from the bonds of slavery and people won't have to make the decision of whether they should risk a life of exploitation or risk their family starving to death.

Please pray for these girls and their families.

Nic

Christmas in Dhaka

2010-01-14T02:16:00.003Z

Hi Everyone, and a belated Happy New Year. May God bless you all in 2010.

Sorry for the long gap between blogs. We've been entertaining visitors and they tend to need a lot of supervising!!

On 24th Dec we went to the airport to meet, Nigel, Margaret, Peter and Louise who had bravely decided to leave the snow and ice and travel a few thousand miles to share Christmas in Dhaka.

We had a great 6 days with Peter and Louise with lots of food, site seeing and meeting with people. On Christmas day we got up late to enjoy a lovely breakfast of pancakes and cereal before opening some 'light weight' presents shipped over by Smith Mail. We enjoyed a lovely Goose and Chicken lunch prepapred by Nicola and Halima (Including some lovely mash potato!) before taking everyone out for their first Dhaka experience: a trip to our local market. At the market you wouldn't know it was Christmas with the usual hussle and bustle, sights, sounds and of course, smells!

Peter and Louise took to the adventure easily and were soon interacting and having a laugh with the locals. In the evening we enjoyed a usual christmas lunch leftover feast and played a few games that had been opeoend earlier in the day. A coldish day but no snow in sight.

On boxing day we took a trip to Dhanmondi for lunch at the Bengali art cafe and had a look around some of the local shops. In the evening we spent some time socialising with the HOw family (Our Oasis Boss) and resited the urge to a let a sky lantern into the Dhaka sky less than 5 miles from a aiport and 1 mile from a military base!

Next day came New market, which was fantastic fun. Lots and lots of bright colours, over helpful staff and ages spent deciding on Margarets Saree. (Viewings by prior arrangement). We even enjoed an argument on a bus on the way down to Dhaka over whther or not we should pay the fare. In the end the passengers on the bus would not let us pay for our ticket as we were deemed guests.... the bus whaller (ticket guy) was not that impressed!!

On the 28th we went out of Dhaka to see a friend, Daniel and his family in Savar. I did a bible study and we took a tour around the local villages. Everyone was again really friendly and the peace and quiet of rural life was greatly recieved.

On the 29th (Andy's Birthday) we travlled down to Old Dhaka. Deep in the heart of Dhaka is this bee hive of activity with small sole traders doing every sort of business you could think of. We popped into the local branch of HSBS to get some money, only for Pete to make some new work friends, us use the toilet and enjoy a welcome sit down and cup of coffee! We were invited back to the office for lunch but instead we headed to the river in search of a boat (Noko) ride.

The boat took us past the busy piers and many boats of all different sizes, loads and cargos from Bamboo to fruit and veg to cement and rubbish. The water was dirty and the smell very un-inviting yet people were still swimming and washing their clothes at the river bank. In the afternoon we took a trip to some nice shops in Banani before heading back to the Flat for a murder mystery dinner evening (see Margaret or Louises facebook Profile for photographic evidence!)

On Pete and Louises last day we headed out shopping in the morning before visiting the Oasis office in the afternoon. In the evening we all got dressed up in Sarees and Punjabs for a lovely meal at a superb local resturant close to our flat (I had the chicken Tika!). It was a nice end to a busy six days trying to fit in all the sights and expertiences that Bangladesh can offer. All of us had a great (if not a little different) Christams week and it was sad to loose two of the family back to the UK the following morning.

But un derttered the foru remaing smiths continued to enjoy their time in Dhaka. NEw year was spent at the flat with Jo (Oasis colleague). BEcuase the Bangladeshy cgovernment had decided to use midnight on the 31st as the date to change their clocks back we actually managed to dance around and sing Auld Langs Aine twice (once in the flat and once on the roof!)

On the firday we went to church and enjoyed meeting up with all the brothers and sisters. Saturday was spent relaxing before getting back into the habit mixing work and caring for parents! Not too difficult - this time they were pros!

We had a great two weeks with Nicola visitng Inidia once on a trafficking case and Andy, Mum and Dad having a trip to Nilphamari to see the factory and meet the staff up there. It was cold up in Nilphamari and 2 or 3 jumpers were pretty much essential all day.

We also managed to get in lots of time with the church members and two more boat trips and a posh aromotherapy massage for Mum. It was even cold in Dhaka on the last week with Blankets and Duvets all round!

As I write this I'm standing in Dhaka aiport awaiting our plane to India for the final part of the Rents visit. We're heading to Kolkata and then on a train to Varanasi (religous city of India), Agra (Taj Mahal) and Udaipur (Lake Palace) before flying back to our respective homes from Delhi.

3 Trains, 3 planes and four hotels all in 10 days (and two oldies on tow) - should be a great adventure!!

Love to you all!

Andy and Nic

2009-12-20T04:45:00.002Z

Hi everyone

Firstly, apologies for the Twitter feeds that appeared on our blog, some of which contained offensive language. We're not sure how that happened but we've now blocked all twitter feeds.

So, since we last wrote we've had another women's get together, a youth group gathering, Andy's visited a group of young believers living just outside Dhaka, we've eaten our first Mince Pie and we've decorated our apartment (oh and we've done some work in between).

Women's Gathering

Another really good morning with the women from the church. There was a great turn out this month and we had a really fab time of fun, study and fellowship.

Two of the women brought their babies (1 yrs old and 9mths), who were toddling around all over the place, putting everything they could lay their hands on in their mouths and generally enjoying being fussed over by a group of very doting women. They were particularly intrigued by the bubbles I ended up having to blow all morning.

One of the sisters led a short talk about living as a woman in Christ, which seemed to go well, although not really understanding what she was saying, it was hard to tell but the rest of the women seemed to be engrossed.

We also had fun making gift boxes out of decorative card / paper. What was great about it was watching the passing on of skills. So, for some of the women, particularly those more eager I taught them how to make the boxes and then they took responsibility for teaching some of the others, who were a bit less forthcoming. It was really lovely to watch this process happen.

Victory Day Youth Gathering

On 16^th December it was a public holiday on account of it being Victory Day, so we had the young people from church round for a get together.

A missionary from Australia led a bible study on Acts, which was really interesting. He introduced us to a technique of bible marking and picking out themes through Acts, which was really helpful for getting an overview of Acts. It was particularly interesting to see how the early church grew – from 120, to 3000, to 5000, to 7000, all from that early group of believers meeting in the upstairs room in Jerusalem. Amazing what you can achieve through prayer and dedication.

After some food we had lots of fun playing the ‘Animal Game’. It was very amusing to have 27 Bangladeshi folk packed into our living room making animal noises and actions!

It was a real time of blessing to have so many young people in our house. What was particularly lovely was to have a group of young lads, who had travelled from Savar (just outside Dhaka) to join us. These lads are very inspirational – having gone through an orphan program run by one of the sisters in the church, they are now living together in a tiny house and studying at University. They are really keen bible scholars and just wonderfully amazing people. They are very gentle, very humble and so eager to learn and develop. They were so keen to come to the gathering that they set out early and arrived an hour before it started, so we were able to spend some quality time with them (and enlist their help in moving furniture!). They truly are examples of young men filled with the Spirit of Christ – we’re learning lots from them.

In the evening we attended the Christmas Do for one of the English Christian Schools in the area (Grace School) and Andy did the calling for their Barn Dance, which was lots of fun.

This weekend we dressed our apartment up in some Christmas finery, so it’s looking very festive and really getting us in the mood for Christmas. We even managed to find some appropriately tacky tinsel to put up (who would have thought – tinsel in Bangladesh).

Over the past couple of weeks we’ve also been reflecting on the message of Jesus’ birth, which, despite being set in Spring time seems appropriate to think about now, as lots of people around the world are doing so.

What has really stood out for us is the contrast between Jesus’ birth and the usual way we celebrate Christmas, which has become even more noticeable since being in Bangladesh. At Christmas time we tend to be at home with family, everything comes to a stop, we have wonderful food, lovely gifts, beautiful decorations and the like.

Jesus was born away from his home, in a feeding trough, in an animal shed, probably with chaos going on around – people shouting, talking, carrying on with their lives, blissfully ignorant that the Saviour of the world had just been born. He would only have his father and mother for company (other than a few excitable visitors); no Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles or other relatives.

Being in Bangladesh, with very few references to Christmas going on around, being away from our friends and family (albeit most of them) and certainly with no sense of the country coming to a stop we can really relate to that first ‘Christmas’.

In amongst the continuing chaos of Bangladesh, the strange smells, the different culture and religion, this lack of festivity has enabled us to recognize more clearly that, actually, over 2000 years ago a baby was born, who would live his life with the same humility as he began it and yet would become the man to free us from a life of captivity – King of the Jews, King of Men, Saviour of the World.

By the way, please don't think we're passing judgement on the way people celebrate Christmas, we're very much looking forward to a traditional English Christmas next year, we simply wanted to share with you the way in which the Nativity Story has impacted us, being in a different context to normal.

Wishing you a time of blessing this Christmas.

Love Andy and Nic x

A short visit to Mumbai

2009-12-08T13:29:00.001Z

Last week Nic had the opportunity of visiting the Oasis office in Mumbai for a series of work related meetings.

After returning from CYC camp on Sunday 29^th November, Nic left on Monday 30^th November for Mumbai via a very busy and run down Kolkata airport.

When you set foot in India, it’s almost instantly noticeable how different it is to Bangladesh. Even just sitting in Kolkata airport you notice the difference; there are more people speaking English as their first language, more Western clothing around and a lot more foreigners.

I landed in Mumbai at about midnight and then took a CNG (Auto rickshaw, or just ‘Rickshaw’ using Indian terminology) to Laura and Katherine’s apartment. This was a much easier process than in Dhaka because you simply walk up to the Rickshaw stand, hop in and tell them where you want to go – they put it straight on the meter, without even so much as an attempt at haggling. I’m told that in Mumbai it’s one of the only Indian cities where they are obliged by law to go on the meter.

The following day we went to an English Medium school while Laura and an Indian colleague gave an introduction to the STOP THE TRAFFIK campaign, Start Freedom (a global initiative to raise awareness amongst young people aged 11-18 and to engage them in helping to prevent human trafficking) – for more details see www.startfreedom.org.

In the afternoon we visited one of our partner organisations, the International Justice Mission, to discuss some cases we’re working on with them and to try to make the repatriation process even more efficient. At the moment what tends to happen is an organisation like Oasis, or IJM will rescue someone from their exploitative situation (usually a brothel) and then they get placed in a government home. From here we will work with the Indian organisation to collect the information we need in order to do a home study of the survivor, so that we can confirm she is Bangladeshi. We pass this information to the Bangladeshi government, who use it to put together the relevant documentation for repatriation.

We also work with these organisations to plan the survivor’s aftercare but often the survivor gets moved between 2 – 4 different shelter homes after being rescued, so each time a new set of aftercare is begun, in accordance with the home’s own internal systems but very rarely is this continued from their last shelter home, or even coordinated, so this can set the survivor back several weeks in her aftercare. We’re trying to work to make the approach to aftercare more cohesive, which was one of the main outcomes of this meeting.

On Wednesday Laura and I travelled by train to Pune, which is a city 3 hours south of Mumbai. The train ride was very beautiful as we meandered through the mountains and particularly so as the doors are always left open, so we get a good view of the landscape.

Travelling by train is always a unique experience, with ‘Chai Wallers’ going up and down the train throughout the journey selling hot cups of tea, the occasional beggar coming through asking for money, the Western toilets with holes leading right down to the tracks, people sitting on the roof, people hanging out the door. Thankfully on the Indian trains there’s far less staring than on the Bangladesh trains, so we were able to enjoy a bit of privacy.

When we arrived in Pune I was pleasantly surprised by the wide leafy roads, the British architecture and the lovely atmosphere of the place – it was a really nice place to visit. After taking lunch Laura and I went to meet another of our partner organisations, Freedom Firm.

After a meeting with them we went to one of the government homes where some of the Bangladeshi girls we are working with are staying.

The home is divided into 2 – a major home and a minor home. We have girls / women in both.

The homes are run by a government-appointed superintendants, who are notorious for being dragons and this particular superintendant was no exception. When we arrived she was sat in her office bellowing at some poor soul. We sat waiting patiently until she had calmed down before going to speak to her for permission to go into the home. Whilst we were waiting the girls came up to the open window and peered through the bars at us. We were able to go and whisper to them, without causing too much of a raucous so as not to attract attention.

After much sweet-talking and pleading the superintendant eventually gave us permission to speak to the 3 Bangladeshi girls that we are working with. Sadly she had taken up a lot of our time before she gave permission, so we only had 30 mins left before we had to go. This was just enough time to speak with the girls and get the details needed to be able to conduct a home study.

When previous attempts have been made to get the girls’ addresses it has been done with a non-Bangla speaker, so the addresses we received were not accurate, or not even identifiable.

By God’s grace, the details the girls gave me were all places I recognised and the girls were able to speak with sufficient clarity and accuracy that they could more or less direct me to the door. Even this simple task is difficult for some survivors, who either can’t remember where they lived, or never knew in the first place or are too traumatised to say.

It was so amazing to finally meet these girls and they seemed happy to be able to jabber away in Bangla, even if I was only able to catch a small portion of what they said. But it was very distressing, especially knowing their stories. One girl hobbled in on broken crutches having tried to escape following her rescue from a brothel. She was rescued from a brothel just before she was exploited but was so distressed by the government home that she was placed in that she tried to escape by jumping out a first story window. Sadly she fractured a hip in the process, so is in a lot of pain and needs a further operation. She was quite teary towards the end of our conversation and was desperate to know when she can go home.

Another girl I met unfortunately had been exploited, despite her many efforts to escape her captors, which resulted in severe beatings. She was about 17 years and was lovely. She told me shyly about her boyfriend in Bangladesh and about her school and her parents. She also became quite teary as we were winding up our conversation and clearly just wanted some form of communication with home.

After my visit with these girls we caught a reasonably crowded train back to Mumbai, munching on lovely warm dosas contemplating all we had seen and heard.

At Mumbai we got around the city by local trains, which is kind of like a metro system. The trains are big and wide but absolutely rammed full. We got to stand in the women’s carriage but they tended to be so full that we could barely breathe at some points. When we wanted to get out we had to position ourselves near the door 2 stops ahead of time and then when the time came to get off we got swept in a tide of women also getting down.

The following day I spent in the Oasis office meeting some of the staff and visiting the half way home we have there, which is for women who are coming out of the brothels. One of the young ladies I met was quite remarkable, she had a real aptitude for learning and was studying to become an accountant.

On Friday I travelled home after a frantic but rewarded visit to India’s second largest city, with a population of 50 million and having the biggest red light area in the world!

The Mumbai experience is hard to capture in words, even after only a short visit. For many, like our trafficking survivors, it’s a place of shattered dreams, a place where all innocence and childhood is lost forever and is traded for a much darker reality. But for some it’s a place where hope in a broken world becomes restored, where God is touching lives and where beauty is found in brokenness.

I guess to understand what I really mean – you just have to experience it for yourselves!

A crown of beauty instead of ashes

2009-11-15T07:14:00.007Z

Following on from Andy's blog, I thought I would share what else has been happening for us.

Birthday Party

On 5th November one of the lads from church turned 16, so we went to his house for the weekly bible study and we were spoilt with lots of lovely birthday food that his wonderful mother had made, including a big yummy slab of birthday cake and ice cream! Sadly he had to get up early the next day for a Bangla exam, which put a bit of a dampener on the celebrations.

Vanity

Over the weekend one of the girls staying with us became ill, so we stayed to keep her company on Friday and then when she was feeling better on Saturday we took her out for a couple of hours. We discovered an American Diner which had a very authentic-looking juke box and which even sold Root Beer! Andy could hardly contain his excitement! In the afternoon the girls and I went to a beauty parlour for a leg wax and eye brow threading! An extremely painful experience and definitely not one to be repeated in a hurry!

The people here take their appearance very seriously, so beauty treatments are a big business. Even the men are ultra concerned about their appearance - only yesterday I was passing by a barber's shop and witnessed a man with a face mask on, having his ear's massaged, whilst waiting for the tangerine colour on his hair to set! It's a very bizarre sight. I'm not sure whether we've mentioned in the past about the whole 'orange hair' phenomenon but if not perhaps I should explain. Basically the men here go in for dying their hair (including facial hair) a tangerine colour. I'm not quite sure why but apparently they think it's attractive (I would tend to disagree). All I can think of when I see a particularly shocking array of orange is Tango adverts - "You know when you've been tangoed"

Trafficking on our doorstep

On 5th November a partner organisation contacted me about 9 women / girls who had been trafficked to India from Bangladesh; 3 of whom were from an area very near to where our office is, which brought it all home - this terrible crime really is on our doorstep! Most of the girls were deceived into travelling to India by being made offers of false jobs, or marriages and most were trafficked by people they knew and trusted.

However, one 17 year old girl was basically kidnapped. She was on a school trip, out walking with her classmates. She got a thorn in her leg, so stopped to pull it out, getting left behind the rest of the group. Whilst doing so someone approached behind her, put a poison-soaked cloth over her mouth and then took her at knife point on a bus to Kolkata. They sold her to someone in Kolkata, who in turn sold her to a brothel in Pune (an area 3 hours from Mumbai). She tried to escape on several occasions but was badly beaten. She was rescued on 15th September and her wounds were still visible.

We are now trying to bring her and the other 8 girls back to Bangladesh. As you can imagine they are very traumatised and shaken up and aren't really speaking much sense at the moment. we would very much appreciate your prayers for their protection and speedy repatriation. Please also pray for their families - that they will accept their girls back willingly and openly and will give the support that is needed upon their return.

I'll keep you updated of their progress but if you want to know more please email.

As I'm reading over what I've written I'm reminded (as I so often am) of Isaiah 61 and can't help feeling a sense of despair that over 2500 years after these words were written, there are still captives waiting to be freed and there are still 'prisoners' that need releasing from darkness. Perhaps my prayer for these women and girls is that they would be crowned with beauty instead of ashes and be anointed with the oil of gladness, instead of mourning.

Business as usual

The remainder of the week was business as usual. We had a nice bible study on Tuesday night looking at Paul's time in prison and reflecting on the way in which God's plans work themselves out - thinking particularly of how Paul made it to Rome (despite a series of events that suggested he would never make it there), which then enabled the gospel to be spread. Pretty amazing and comforting to know that God has it all in hand.

As you will have read, Andy was up in Nilphamari, so it was just me and the girls at home.

Murder at the TV Awards

On Friday we had a birthday party to celebrate one of the girls' 21st birthday. So, we organised a murder mystery with a few of her friends here. We had a great time trying to suss out who possibly could have murdered Sugar Doll whilst gorging ourselves on a 3 course dinner and lovely chocolate birthday cake.

On Saturday our house helper continued her cooking lessons and this week they mastered lasagne (with home made lasagne sheets) and the best cup cakes ever! We were very impressed and never expected to be eating such wonderful food in Bangladesh. The lady who's teaching Halima is a lady from church, who is an amazing cook and so keen to learn new things. It's a bit of a challenge for Halima to remember the recipes, particularly since she's illiterate, so can't check a recipe book but with practice she'll get there. Thankfully we're not particularly fussy eaters, so we're quite tolerant of dried, overcooked chicken, or mushy over-cooked veg (ha ha)!

Having spent some time with the cooking team I joined the girls for more birthday antics in the afternoon before coming home and getting on with some more planning for the church youth camp in a couple of weeks time.

Think that's about our lot for the time being.

Thanks, as always to you all for being interested in what we're doing - it's so encouraging to know we're supported and that people are sharing the experience with us.

Much love

Andy and Nic

Early morniing in Nilphamari

2009-11-14T12:29:00.010Z

Hi all,
On Tues last week I visited our factory in Nilphamari for two days. When we visit the factory we take an overnight bus trip from Dhaka to a place called Saidpur. The trip takes about 8 hours and is usually fairly comfortable.To get from the Bus station to the factory we take an hour long early morning Rickshaw and this is one of our favourite trips we take in Bangladesh. So I thought I’d devote a whole blog to our trip with some of piccies for you to look at…We left the bus station sitting on our van with the luggage behind. As we travel through Saidpur most of the shops are shut as they’ve probably been open till midnight the day before. Its nice and cool, a bit foggy and most of the people are wrapped up warm (even I’m in a jumper!)

We pass the train station where a train has just pulled in causing much excitement and the possibilities for earning money if you’re a beggar, seller or rickshaw waller.We sail right on through the town, only stopping to pick up a tooth brush and toothpaste as I forgot to pack them!

Next we pass an old Muslim mosque. The mosque is about 100 years old and is in the process of being extended.

Then its out into the country side with the odd child heading off to school and a few sellers heading off to the local villages or market with their classy plastic products, or fish, or vegetables or live chickens – all balanced on their heads.

We see other rickshaw vans piled high with products and the odd single cyclist heading off to work in a field or factory somewhere.

This is one of the poorest regions in Bangladesh and industry is few and far between. Most of the land is used for farming rice (which they manage to get three harvests from each year – some of the most fertile country in the world!). Other uses include potatoes and Tobacco. We pass a large tobacco factory on the way. And see miles and miles of open rice fields. Workers are dotted around the fields harvesting or planting or organising the watering of these important plants. Bangladesh is the most populated country in the world (excluding the city states) and most people eat a big bowl of rice three times a day. It needs this crop to survive. Very little is used for export.

Occasionally you see a pair of oxen pulling a plough or people threshing the rice plant to discover the small grains of rice. Nicola always comments how it reminds her of the Story of Ruth and Boaz.

If the land is green, healthy and peaceful then the roads are completely the opposite! Even up here there are many buses and Lorries who think they own the road. Travelling down the narrow stretches at high speeds thundering their horns at any thing that even remotely looks like getting in its way. If you should happen to be in the way when two of these giants pass each other its normally best to dive off the road onto the verge for safety!

Banana trees and bamboo clumps litter the side of the road and the bamboo clumps can be seen in the fields stretching high into the sky above the very flat and low lying land. All of the roads are built up on embankment so that they are still useable when the floods and rains come for 4 months each year.

We pass more cyclists and people walking and also breeze through small villages and towns. The road side shops offer anything from DVD’s, rice and DIY equipment through to bicycle repairs and pharmacies. All single room shops with roller shutter doors; often coming to life in the cool of the evening.

As I said before the whole journey takes about and hour and is a truly relaxing and stress free start to the day (if you can cope with the buses!). Being up here is how you imagine England to be before the turn of the industrial revolution. And is a million miles away from the business of Dhaka.

Love to all, Andy (and Nic) x

Still here...honest...

2009-11-04T14:39:00.004Z

We're so sorry there's been such a long delay between postings; we really will try to get on top of this over the upcoming few weeks.

So, our activities over the last couple of weeks:

Church

Ladies Get-together
We had the first of our ladies get together at our house a few weeks ago for the women at church. It was a really good morning as we spent time talking, sharing, studying and eating lovely fruit and cake.

For a lot of the women in this culture, they spend so much of their time working to earn money, looking after the house, cooking and raising their children that their own needs come pretty low on the list of priorities. Some are currently feeling a bit lost and a bit trapped in their lives; particularly those younger women who are of 'marrying age' and whose father's are currently looking for a suitable husband. For them it's an extremely anxious time, not knowing what type of husband they will get, whether he will be respectful of their beliefs and whether he will give them the space and freedom to be the beautiful, creative, ambitious women that God created them to be.

With that in mind we spent some time being encouraged by one of God's beautiful, creative, ambitious, trapped daughters in the bible, namely Esther. The time of prayer and study was wonderful. There's something special about the way women come together to worship God.

We were also entertained by the 3 babies of 3 mothers that came, 1 one of whom found a deep fascination with bird watching over our balcony (a budding David Belamy maybe?!)

Sunday School Picnic
On Friday we went on the annual Sunday School picnic to a place called Savar, about 1.5 hours outside of Dhaka, which is home to the national war memorial commemorating the 1971 Liberation War. The 3 main Sunday Schools all got together for a time of games, singing and bible study in the grounds of the war memorial park, followed by some lunch on a shady bit of grass, which consisted of a cardboard box filled with rice, some chicken and a hard boiled egg.

All the kids had a fantastic time, particularly playing the games and they were still full of enthusiasm during Sunday School on Saturday evening - in fact it was the first thing they all talked to me about. There were about 30 kids in total together with a few of their Sunday School teachers.

The actual was quite interesting in itself. There were a lot of people working there, including young children, who probably lived in the park or the local streets. They worked picking up litter, climbing the trees to get peanuts, which they then cracked open and sold, or sweeping leaves from the ground. Word seemed to get round pretty quickly that we were there, so before we knew it a large group of these kids were surrounding our game of Duck Duck Goose as they took eager delight in watching what we were doing.

Work
For the anti-trafficking work, the majority of Nic's time has been spent in putting together materials for Start Freedom, which is an initiative being run by STOP THE TRAFFIK to engage school children on the issue of trafficking. We are running this project in as many English Medium Schools as possible in Bangladesh.

Nic has also been spending time working on the aftercare for the survivor we mentioned in the last blog. It's so encouraging to see how keen she is to develop and progress her life. She's really focusing on the future and doesn't seem to be too help back by the experiences she's encountered through being trafficked. Actually, she was one of the more fortunate trafficking victims, as she was rescued before being sold to a brothel but that's not to detract from the severity of the trafficking process; it simply means that she hasn't got the added trauma of being sexually exploited. Anyway, she is due to be attending work experience in a local clinic to see whether she would be interested in doing a training course to become a medical assistant and we are also trying to arrange some work experience for her at a beauty parlour, where she can be trained to be a beautician.

Andy's been taking over the project management of our bamboo manufacturing and has been doing some project development work using our 'bamboo frame' concept. He is now also working on some graphics work and maintaining a link with two Oasis academies in the UK.

Personal
Well we still have our 2 lovely house guests staying with us, who are lots of fun to have round, especially when they emerge from their room first thing in the morning - we now remember what it's like being a teenager (ha ha). One of the girls' dad stayed with us for a few day to see what his daughter was up to and to spend time with her seeing the sights, which was really special.

We have arranged for our house helper to have some more cooking training from a lady at church. Last week she cooked roast chicken with Veg and Nan bread - yum! She is a very keen learner and the lady from church is a great teacher. The biggest challenge for our house helper is remembering the recipes when she is completely illiterate but nothing a bit of practice won't sort out.

Last Saturday we went to a craft fair at the local mission school, which was great because there were lots of amazing projects there displaying the items that the people they are supporting had made. Most of the stalls were fair trade and there were lots of Christmassy things on display (so two big thumbs up for me). We find it really worthwhile supporting these types of projects because it's a way of keeping people away from begging on the streets and they're actually doing meaningful, sustainable jobs, which give them ongoing training and support and mean they have an opportunity for a fulfilling life. A lot of the projects are working with destitute women, or people formerly on the streets, or the most marginalised in society...so much need but what a great way of addressing it. It's so comforting to know exactly where your money's going and who it's benefiting!

Anyway, think that's about all our news.

Hope you all have (have had) a great bonfire night. We'd love to hear of your bonfire antics if you fancy dropping us an email, as long as you promise not to gloat too much about how many hot dogs and toasted marshmallows you ate.

Lots of love as always

Nic and Andy x

P.S. PHOTOS HAVE BEEN UPDATED - even added comments because we were feeling so guilty!

Welcome Home

2009-10-16T16:06:00.002+01:00

Hi all

It's been an exciting couple of weeks on all fronts (and in no particular order):

1. It was Nic's birthday last weekend, so we had a fantastic party on the roof of our building;

2. We made a big breakthrough with our product - with our first one being sold and used and 2 big orders being made.

3. One of our trafficking survivors returned to Bangladesh.

Time for some elaboration

Birthday
On Saturday was Nic's birthday, so we had a party to celebrate that and also to celebrate the arrival of some new members of our team and as a belated housewarming.It was very exciting - all of the Oasis staff attended and Andy had arranged to use the roof on our apartment block and he had also arranged to have it decorated with lots of lovely fairy lights - very beautiful.

What came as a surprise (to both of us) was when one of our colleagues turned up with 4 of his mates, who then turned out to be a Hindi dance troop. Towards the end of the evening they started performing some Hindi dancing to us all, which obviously we had to join in with!

Product
So a big week for our product. Not only has our first one been sold and used in the UK but we also secured 2 big contracts in Europe and Australia - WAHOO! So, whilst being extremely happy to have these new orders coming through, we're currently wondering about how on earth we're going to meet them. However, looking at the way in which God enabled us to overcome the mountain of our first production run, we have absolute confidence that He will enable us to conquer this mountain. It's amazing to think that 12 months ago we had no idea what product we would be producing, no factory to produce it in, no workforce and no supplier. Now we have 3 suppliers, a factory, a product, customers and most importantly people employed who desperately need the jobs! Clearly, God's hand has been with us and continues to go with us in the work Oasis is doing.

Survivor
On Wednesday Nic took a trip to the south of the country to meet one of the survivors we have helped repatriate from India (for the purpose of this blog we will refer to her as Rahima).

This is quite an amazing story and another one where it couldn't have come about without God's divine intervention.

Rahima was trafficked from her village in June with her friend by a local policeman. she was sold to another trafficker in India, who took her to Mumbai. On his way to taking her to a brothel to be sold she escaped and managed to contact an organisation in Bangladesh that we work with. They contacted us and we alerted our team in Mumbai. They then worked with a partner organisation to rescue Rahima. Thankfully they managed to rescue her and take her to Oasis' half way home in Mumbai.

Rahima was then transferred to Kolkata whilst awaiting the official documentation from the government that allows her to return home. Normally it takes 6 - 12 months for the paperwork to be processed by the 2 governments but in this case it came through in a matter of weeks; totally amazing!

So, on Wednesday 7th October we received a phone call to say that Rahima's travel documentation had come through and she would be returning to Bangladesh the following day.

She travelled by bus from Kolkata to the Bangladesh border. She was met by our partner organisation and after filling in some official documentation at the police station she was taken to a shelter home in the area that she comes from.

On Wednesday Nic and a couple of colleagues met with her and the shelter home team to discuss her aftercare and options for the future.

She is quite a remarkable young lady - very well adjusted, with a good education, a wonderfully caring heart and a real ambition to get a good career that would bring honour to her family as well as to complete her education. She is very motivated to achieve and grow and to live a life of independence. Unfortunately she doesn't seem to have any idea about how talented she is and how much potential she has. In fact all she aspires to at the moment is to be a hospital domestic assistant but from meeting her it seems she is capable of so much more.

Before she was trafficked she was living in a village with her family, who could barely afford to feed the four children. She had been married but her husband left her and is living in the same village with his new wife and children. There is a lot of hurt surrounding the separation from her husband and it was very sad to hear her talking about it.

Our prayer for Rahima is that she would be encouraged to dream big dreams and that she would receive the support she needs to achieve some of those dreams. We also pray that God would heal the hurt she feels at the breakdown of her marriage and that this situation would create an opportunity for a new life filled with blessings and hope.

In terms of our other activities over the past couple of weeks, we've spent time with the young people at church helping them to arrange their youth "camp" (retreat) for the end of November. They're all extremely excited about the prospect of spending time away in the presence of God and loving friends and also for the opportunity to see a part of the country that many of them will not have seen before.

We have also been on a youth group trip to the park today, which was really fun. Andy led a short study and there was the obligatory games that had to be played (what youth group would be complete without a few games?!)

Tomorrow the women from church are coming round to spend the morning together with some worship, some bible study and hopefully a good deal of fellowship. Nic's very much looking forward to it and is hoping that positive relationships will be forged and that there will be enough cake to go round :-)

So, that pretty much sums up the highlights from the last couple of weeks. We still have the two girls from the UK staying with us, who are working with Oasis, which is lovely. They've started to get more settled now and are just about getting to grips with the transport and using their Bangla. In addition, we have started to perfect the art of cramming 5 passengers in a small taxi (parents if you're reading this look away now......................)

Which basically involves the two girls in the back with Andy. Nic then sits on Andy's knee with her head out the window, apparently there are certain similarities to a Labrador! The locals think it's hilarious and just when we thought we couldn't attract any more attention than we already do simply by being foreigners!

Anyhow, I'm pleased to say we don't have to travel in that manner too often.

Just to end the posting, we wanted to share one last thought with you. Today at church we were thinking about how big and amazing our God is and we reflected on Job 38 v 4 - 7 "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundations? Tell me if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone - while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?"

As all the events described above have unfolded we've really had a sense of how awesome and amazing God is - so awesome that He would pick 35 people out of abject poverty and provide lasting jobs for them, so awesome that He would intervene to prevent a beautiful young woman from being sold to a brothel and that's only a drop in the ocean (so to speak).

May we all feel the presence of this awesome God as we go about our lives these coming days.

Andy and Nic x

Finishing off.........

2009-10-04T12:35:00.004+01:00

Hi everyone,

Its been another busy 2 weeks in Bangladesh and we can't believe we've been here for a month already!

It's two weeks so let me update you all a week at a time:
Week 1)
This was mainly taking up by Bible Camp. We had a great time with lots of study and praise and worship. Most of the church here managed to attend the 5 day event. We were all bussed out of town on the Sunday evening and were taken to conference centre about an hour out of Dhaka.

It was a nice place close to the first city of Bangladesh and, as always, nice to be out of the hustle and bustle of Dhaka city. We had a full five days of study, worship, eating and good fellowship with everyone. The church was joined by a some field workers from Australia including Ron Hicks who originally set up the church when he came here with the world bank 10 years ago. Unfortunately we had to leave a day early because we needed to be back at work on the Thursday.

On Friday Andy led the class at Banani and we said goodbye to Ken, a long term field worker from Canada who has had to leave his wife and 8 month year old baby and return to Canada for work. He'll be coming back in the New year to pick up his family and take them to Canada.

Week 2)
Last week we had a slow start with one day at the office and then a day off for the Hindu Holiday of Durga Pooja. This gave Nicola and I some time to sort a few jobs at the house including getting a cheap dinning table. On Monday night we had some people over from church for a meal (on our new table) and had chance to give some feedback on the products they had given us to take back to the UK. It was good to spend time with them and organise how we can take their ideas for their business further.

After they had left Andy packed his bag and headed up to Nilphamari on the overnight bus with his boss. He was due to stay for one day and catch the train home but due to the end of both the Muslim and Hindu holiday all the tickets were booked. So Andy was stranded up at the factory for another day!

This gave plenty of time to oversee the packaging of products ready to ship in our container and also plan for production over the next few weeks and months. The following day Andy and boss got the last two tickets on a squashed non-ac bus back to Dhaka. The seats were right at the back with no leg room for two big guys and we were bounced around for 7 hours all the way back to Dhaka! We even had to stop at a rest stop for 40 mins whilst they jacked up the bus and hit the wheel with a metal pole whilst we were all sitting on board!!

Meanwhile, back in Dhaka, Nicola was runnign here and there busy organising things for two short term Oasis workers who are staying at our home for the next month. Getting beds, sheets, extra cups and bowls, setting up internet and welcome packs, and schedules.... all bus busy stuff.

So by the time Andy got back on Thursday morning we were both feeling exhausted!! But, no rest for the wicked, we got up early friday morning to meet our new guests at the airport at 4.15am! They're in Bangladesh for 2 months and will be mainly working on Stop the Traffik and in the community school.

So far so good, both girls are lovely and seem to be enjoying life in this crazy town!! Hopefully this we'll manage to get some time in the office to get organised with all the work that's piling up for us both.

So one month in, and we're both loving every minute! We're still happy to have visitors so if anyone wants to come and share some of the experience then please let us know!

God Bless,
Andy and Nic

Its Quality mate!!

2009-09-20T08:15:00.003+01:00

Hi everyone, Hope you are all well...

We've been having a usual busy time of it, but enjoying every moment!

It's been two weeks since our last posting and quite a bit has happened. Firstly, we managed to secure a brand new flat in the an ideal location, close to where we used to live. We've also managed to move into the flat as well which is even more remarkable considering that its been coming to the end of Ramadam and Eid (which is a big celebration in the Muslim calendar) starts tomorrow.

This means everyone is busy preparing, buying presents etc (Kind of like Christmas back home is!). Also means the cost of everything goes up too!

But we're in and feel a little settled but in the need of some furniture so we can eat a meal at a table!

Nicola has been slowly catching up with the Stop the Traffik work by having a few meetings and solidly replying to emails.

The last working week we spent up in Nilphamari at our new Coffin factory. Andy volunteered to go up there to help with some quality checking as production comes to a close. Nicola also went up and we both basically ended up working 9hr days in the factory checking quality and making suitable alterations. Rest assured (no pun intended) that no serious work was needed just some touching up on the details!

Nicola returned back to work in Dhaka on Thurs leaving Andy up at the Factory until Fri morning. This meant a 13 hour working day at the factory for Andy on the Thurs!!

But spending time up there was really amazing as we got to know some of the workers better, building up some good relations and starting to understand how a secure job can make a world of difference to the lives of some of these people. One truly amazing story came out when one of the workers told of how she was abused at home by her husband but was so happy to be earning her own income and described work as a place of refuge for her in an otherwise despairing life.

The past weekend has been spent working on some Delph talks and Sunday school lessons as we leave for Bible Camp today (20th). We're heading an hour out of Dhaka with all the Bro's and Sis's for a 4 day residential.

We also managed to get to the Mirpur church last night where Andy spoke on Luke 11. It was great to see everyone again and to discover that they're growing together in size love and fellowship... most of the usual crowd were there and everyone was really pleased to see us.

We'll fill you in on details of the bible camp when we get back. Love to all!
Andy and Nic x

We're Back

2009-09-06T04:07:00.003+01:00

Greetings, once again, from Dhaka.

As you can tell we’ve arrived safely back in Bangladesh. We landed on Monday 31st August on a very crowded Emirates flight from Dubai; crammed full of Bangladeshi men returning from the United Emirates. The volume of people wouldn’t have been so bad if those people hadn’t been accompanied by bags and bags of duty free; so much so that they had to start piling it in the hold and when that was full people had to put it under their seats, on their knees and in the aisles!

After we arrived in Dhaka we went to a colleague’s house to freshen up and then went off to the Oasis Bangladesh annual staff conference in Savar, about 1.5 hours north of Dhaka.

The staff conference lasted 3 days and was great for catching up on what we’d missed and for getting to know our colleagues a bit better. It was also very inspirational and motivating.

Over the course of the conference we did some leadership training, thought about our aspirations and hopes and learnt what was going on in all the different Oasis Bangladesh projects.

Highlight
Riding on some rickety old waltzers at the amusement park with our Bangladeshi colleagues, who were laughing uncontrollably the whole time.
Memorable Quote:
“It is great to have your life used for something bigger than yourself”
Memorable Verse:
(When God called Moses and Moses felt overwhelmed by the task to which he was being called) “[The Lord said to Moses] What is that in your hand?”

After getting back late on Wednesday night we then moved into our friends’ vacant flat for a temporary stay whilst we look for a new place to live. So, on Thursday morning we commenced our search around the area where we used to live. Despite searching for over 6 hours there was very little to choose from. Eventually we’ve got it down to 2, which we’re now choosing between, so watch this space.

On Friday we went to the Bagha club to catch up on some emails and then to church for lunch and memorial service (sermon + communion). It was great to catch up with everyone again and to meet some new faces and it was wonderful to be so warmly welcomed.

It seems that a common question is what the weather’s like here, so to summarise: it’s still monsoon season but we’re coming to the end of it. When we arrived the ground seemed pretty water logged but nowhere near as bad as we were expecting. It’s rained on and off since we arrived, which has been lovely for cooling the air down (although the humidity very quickly kicks in when the sun comes out).

It’s also Ramadan here, so the majority of the population are fasting during the day and then they break their fast at around 7.20. That means they aren’t allowed to consume anything – not even water – during daylight hours. It’s amazing to see the peoples’ devotion to this religious practice, particularly when they have to work so hard in such difficult conditions.

So, almost a week in and it feels like we’ve never been away; the Bangla we spoke (limited as it is) has pretty much all come back; the roads are still as decrepit as ever and the people are still as lovely as ever. We have been amazed by how excited we were about coming back and how warmly welcomed we were by everyone here – our work colleagues and church community alike. It truly feels like God has blessed us in bringing us back and we are praying that this blessing may continue.

Just before we sign off - a huge thanks to all have supported us and continue to support us in coming back; whether it be financially, prayerfully or emotionally - it has made the transition, once again, very manageable.

Love Nic and Andy

Bangladesh Evening 13th June

2009-05-14T13:58:00.002+01:00

Before I get into the events of the past week or so, just wanted to stop you and encourage to go and grab your diaries, calendars, PDAs, or whatever you use to store dates (gents - run and tell your wives / girlfriends).

Go on.....

SATURDAY 13TH JUNE - An evening to experience Bangladesh

Here's the poster

Unfortunately the poster I managed to upload doesn't have the text on so I'll tell you what it says:

"If you've never experienced the sights and sounds of Bangladesh, now's your opportunity. Come and journey with us through the streets of Dhaka and through the bamboo gardens of Nilphamari for an evening of fun, food and entertainment as we share our experiences of Bangladesh. The evening will be held at the Westleigh Christadelphian Hall, Westleigh Road, Leicester LE3 0HH, on Saturday 13th June at 6.30pm"

Basically we're having an interactive evening to share with you what it's like to live and work in Bangladesh. We would love your company and please feel free to bring along friends and family - the more the merrier as far as we're concerned.

If you want more information please drop us an email. Also, it would be useful for us if you could let us know whether you're intending on coming, so we can have an indication of numbers.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Much love

Andy and Nic

A bit of News

2009-05-02T10:00:00.002+01:00

Before we get into the general ins and outs of what we've been up to we thought we should let you all know that after much thinking, praying and talking we've decided to stay in Bangladesh for a further 12 months as of August this year.

We're planning on returning to the UK at the beginning of June for 2 months and then we'll be coming back to Bangladesh again in August, God willing. We'll be coming back to work with Oasis again but our roles within Oasis might change slightly.

We're also planning on having a Bangladesh evening in the middle of June where you can share in the experience we've been having (hopefully bringing this blog a bit more to life). When we've confirmed the date and finalised the details we'll publish a new posting.

So, now on to what we've been up to over the past couple of weeks. It's been back to business as usual. Again, Andy's been putting in some late nights and a bit of weekend work as he and the team desperately try and get the product finished within the next 2 weeks ready for our boss to take back to the UK (sorry can't disclose details about the product, we're trying to keep it under wraps for the time being).

Nic's been doing some contract drafting for the business and on the anti-trafficking front we're currently working on 13 cases of girls who have been trafficked to India that we're now trying to bring back. All of them were sold into the sex industry and have been severely exploited, either in the brothels, or by pimps and almost all of them have now been arrested and are residing in a government home in India.

In case you thought you mis-read that, you didn't - those girls really have been arrested. Some of them have been arrested for commercial sex work, or for illegally residing in India (clearly if you're trafficked, your not going to be able to bring identification documentation with you, even if you have it in the first place).

Anyway, we're now working with partners in India to get a repatriation order from the Indian government to bring the girls back across the border and then work to reintegrate them back into society.

No doubt when we're back in the UK we'll enlighten you as to the experiences of some of these girls but for now it makes pretty harrowing reading, so probably best left off the blog for the time being.

We've also been pretty involved in church over the past couple of weeks. Last week there was a women's day at church, which Nic supported and which was really great. It was so refreshing to see the women sharing their problems and supporting one another.

Nic also helped teach at a slum sunday school that the church runs. It has now moved to a Saturday, which is great cause it's now something we can support. It was most amusing because the kids, who probably ranged from age 2 - 10 had the attention span of knats but we did some drama and some activities, which they loved. It was great fun to see them engaging and enjoying themselves, safe and secure from their ordinarily fairly troubled lives.

We've also been in the middle of a heat wave here. Apparently temperatures peaked last Sunday at 44C. That has meant very frequent power cuts and even water shortages. At the church flat they were without water for 3 days! At our place we've lost water a bit in the evenings but nothing too drastic. We're into a good bucket-filling routine now.

The rise in temperatures has caused a massive increase in diseases in the city. Loads of people are coming down with fevers, flus and chronic diarrhoea. The government hospitals are full to bursting and a lot of people can't afford the treatment in any event. Not a pretty sight!

Thankfully this weekend the rains came, which has brought the temperatures right down and has reduced the power cuts and water cuts (phew).

You may recall that our house-helper's house and rest of the slum got destroyed in a fire a few weeks ago. They are slowly managing to rebuild their houses and help is filtering down. It's still not ideal as they're still sleeping under plastic sheets but hopefully it will only be a couple of weeks before the houses get rebuilt.

All the house owners are having to rebuild their own homes, so the speed at which they can build is slightly affected by the rate at which they can buy materials but little by little help is coming.

I think that's about all from our end.

Hope you're all well and enjoy the Bank Holiday

Love Andy and Nic x

For He's a Jolly Good Fellow

2009-04-19T04:47:00.002+01:00

This is the second part of the catching up blog postings.

After getting back from our holiday on an overnight bus on Easter Sunday (12th April)and arriving back in Dhaka on Monday morning we then took a trip to Old Dhaka with Lucy (a must see for anyone visiting Bangladesh!).

Given that the streets were fairly crowded and the sun was pretty toasty we decided to take our tour by rickshaw, rather than on foot. After travelling through some of the narrow little streets and admiring the old derelect buildings we arrived by the water's edge at a small port, which I think is better described as a landing station. It was good to see all the hussle and bustle around the landing station as people were transporting vegetables on large baskets on and off small boats, other boats were waiting to take passengers across to the other side of the river, people were working by the side of the river and people just crowded in to see these strange Bideshi (foreigner) faces.

After an exciting trip round Old Dhaka we went to Computer City (a large shopping complex full of computer related stores).

In the afternoon we relaxed, unpacked and then Lucy got ready for her early morning departure. We then all stumbled out of bed at 3.00am and took a taxi to the airport. After a sad goodbye to Lucy Andy and I sleepily got back into bed for a further few hours kip.

On Tuesday it was New Year's Day here. So, that meant a national holiday and the streets were full of people celebrating. The traditional colours to wear on New Year's Day is red and white, so there were lots of ladies looking beautiful in their red and white Sari's or Salwa Kamiz's and the ben were wearing red and white punjabi suits.

On that day our work colleague was getting married, so we set off to a village in Gazipur, which is about 1 hour outside the city.

The wedding was due to start at 11.30, or so we understood. So 5 of us from the office dutifully arrived at the starting time and as expected we were the first to arrive. Even the groom hadn't arrived by then and was still sat in the barber's.

We made our way down the narrow, dusty road to a small village where the bride's family were from and where the wedding was due to take place. The houses in the village were all made of tin and were closely packed together. The houses were kind of arranged in clusters of 5 - 6, with each cluster sharing a toilet and well. At the entrance to the village was a large sort of entrance made out of brightly coloured cloth, which is always put up when there's a wedding.

In the middle of this village was a larger tin building, which normally served as a school but on this day it was to be the church hall.

After some time looking round the village and meeting the residents we were escorted into the church hall where we were given some very welcomme drinks and snacks.

After that there was a bit more standing around and talking, by which time we were absolutely cooking! There were 2 small fans in the church building but not that helpful in 40C heat when you're in a tin shack. I think it's fair to say that neither of us have ever sweated as much as we did that day (sorry...maybe too much information for a blog?!). However, I'm told that the sauna-like conditions are very good for our skin, so that's a bonus!

Anyway, after that we managed to watch one of the pre-marriage rituals, which was a ceremonial washing. The bride and groom were both dressed in yellow and then the bride's family gave the couple a "turmeric shower", where they tipped turmeric and water all over the bride and groom. From an outsider's perspective it looked like the bride's family were enjoying it a lot more than the "Happy couple".

After this ritual the couple then had to get cleaned up and but their glad rags on for the ceremony. Whilst we were waiting to appear we were given seats under the shade of one of the houses and after a few minutes we were surrounded by a crowd of around 50 kids staring at us. To try and remove some of the awkwardness our boss and Andy started doing some "magic tricks" to entertain the masses whilst we waited.

At about 1.30 the ceremony started. The bride looked beautiful in her red sari overlayed with lots of gold. She also fulfilled her role very well of looking completely miserable for the entire ceremony and even shed a few tears. It's the bride's job to look sad at a wedding because she is leaving her family home.

After the ceremony we stayed for the meal provided by the bride's family. They were very kind to us and gave us proper chips and battered chicken - just like a homemade KFC; it was yum!

At about 3.45 we then travelled back to Dhaka, by now completely covered in sweat but nonetheless very happy that we were able to share in such an exciting Bangaldeshi experience.

As we travelled back home the streets were lined with people celebrating the new year and enjoying the fact that for the vast majority of people they were with their family and didn't have to go to work.

The rest of the week was spent at work. Andy has been really busy with some key design challenges, so has had a few meetings to thrash it out.

It's getting pretty hot now as well and the humidity has been turned up a few notches. This means that there are more and more power cuts and we seem to spend our days looking out for the "AC moments" or the nearest cold shower (although in this heat the shower isn't even that cold). Whilst it may sound a little unbearable, we're actually coping fine - God has really blessed us with the ability to adapt to the heat and we have plenty of "cool moments" to fill our day.

If we catch ourselves moaning about the heat we have a very immediate reminder of how blessed we are when we think of our house helper sheltering under nothing more than a plastic sheet on the wreck of her former house, or the street children on the roads outside having to beg in the sweltering heat day after day. Sometimes it's easy to lose sight of the great many blessings we have and we thank God for those gentle reminders in our life.

Until next time...

Easter Break

2009-04-17T06:49:00.002+01:00

I think it's been a little over a week since we last wrote, so there's a bit of catching up to do.

Over the Easter weekend the office was closed on Easter Sunday, so we took the opportunity to take a trip out of Dhaka to show Lucy the real Bangladesh.

We travelled overnight on a coach down to the South West of the country in an area called Cox's Bazaar. This area is popular with the locals and is apparently famed for having the world's longest beach.

We were actually staying in a mission guest house about 60km north of the beach in a hospital compound (there seems to be a running theme of where we take our guests on holiday!).

The bus trip down was good. It's a 10 hr journey to Cox's but about 9 for us because we got down before the bus reached the final destination. Since it was such a long journey we treated ourselves to Executive seats, which was a new experience for us - lovely wide seats, which apparenly had a massage setting on them but none of us could get working and they reclined almost horizontally - ahhh bliss! It's going to be tough reverting back to our standard means of travel.

We arrived at about 7.30am on Friday morning, just in time for breakfast.

The guest house was beautiful; very peaceful and relaxing nestled away on a slight hill amongst lots of lovely shady trees. Our rooms were very nice and typically twee and we were even fortunate to have Western food cooked for us, which was a real privilege. There was even a pool on the compound, which was great for taking a dunk after a hard afternoon of reading!

We were the only Brits staying at the guest house, the rest were American Christians either working at the hospital, or visiting from a nearby area.

On Friday we spent the day relaxing as we were still pretty sleepy after the bus trip. Andy was very excited to spot a full sized basketball court and even more excited when there were people to play with. So, Andy and a few Americans who either worked on the compound, or were visiting formed a team and had a good run around in the blazing heat! Sadly the game came to an early end when Andy got a whopper of a blister on is left foot, so couldn't carry on. A bit disappointing since he could hardly walk, so was out for the following 2 days.

In the evening we joined in with the church service they have at the guest house. This is mainly for the expats who live and work on the compound but those staying at the guest house are invited to stay.

On Saturday we hired a car to take us down to Cox's Bazaar. We spent the morning looking round a Buddhist Temple, which was really interesting, followed by some browsing around the Burmese Market. This area of the country is very close to Myanmar (Burmer) and in fact used to be part of Burmer, so there are a lot of Burmese living in that area and there is quite a high Buddhist population.

After that we had a leisurely lunch in one of the hotels by the side of the beach, whilst we waited for the temperatures to cool down a bit. The restaurant was alongside the hotel's pool, so there was a large glass screen overlooking the pool. This kept us very entertained during our lunch as we watched the locals "swimming" in the pool fully clothed. When we say swimming what we mean is some cross between doggy paddle and a pretend drowning manoeuvre - very amusing! Just to add to the entertainment there were some young men who obliged us with their "diving" acrobatics, which as you may have already guessed were perfectly formed belly flops! Needless to say the Bangladeshis aren't renowned for their swimming prowess.

After tearing ourselves away from the poolside entertainment we wandered across to the beach. The beach was vast and not too crowded - not like European beaches!

There were some sun loungers strewn across the beach in a single line, which we hired for a couple of hours. The sun lounger experience is not quite like in Europe - there's a distinct lack of scantily clad people trying their best to frizzle and instead people sit on them fully clothed and simply chat to their friends, or on their mobile phone.

We of course followed etiquette and sat fully clothed - Andy pushed the boundaries a bit and sat in shorts and t-shirt but Nic of course sat in her full Salwa Kamiz (although minus the scarf bit!)

The sand was beautiful. Not really the pure white sands of the Indian Ocean but instead lovely warm golden sands - the kind you would see in the Med.

The sea was also wonderful. Some really good sized waves to play in and soooo warm! I can't even begin to describe how warm the sea was; just like a bath. So, we spent a good deal of time playing around in the waves admiring the ocean. It was a little restrictive trying to jump the waves in a full Salwa Kamiz (trousers and dress) but I made do!

It was really fun to see lots of Bangladeshi families enjoying themselves in the sea and to watch groups of fishermen hauling their nets through the waters. It's so amazing that there is somewhere so beautiful that people can go and forget the cares of life - no matter whether your rich or poor.

As always we attracted a lot of attention being the only white folk on the beach. So, we got the usual street children come up to us asking for money, or trying to sell us things. There was one lad who was going round with his older brother and friend, who couldn't have been older than 6 or 7. His brother was making him sit on the end of peoples' sun loungers and sing songs to get some money. That was really upsetting - it seemed so degrading to have to sing pityfully to people to get money, particularly when the locals were kind of giggling in a very patronising sort of a way.

Anyway, the kid was very cute, so we sat and chatted to him and his brother for a bit, which was fun.

After our day at the beach we spent the next day at the guest house just lazing around the compound. As it was Easter Sunday they had prepared a special Easter meal, which was yummy and there was an Easter service, which we were able to partly join in with before our bus back to Dhaka.

All in all a very relaxing break and a really good opportunity for Lucy to see the beauty of Bangladesh - away from the big smoke of Dhaka.

Lucy, Rain and Fire

2009-04-07T04:10:00.003+01:00

Hi Everyone!

Things have been busy again here over the past week and a half with big product deadlines and the arrival of a special visitor.

Lucy arrived in the wee small hours of 31st.. we both met her at the aiport and got stuck straight into Bangladesh life with a walk around the local Bazar and a trip to the Orphanage we sometimes visit. She's settled in really well and seems to be enjoying her time here so far. She's proven to be very adventurous and keen to explore some parts of Dhaka herself.

We took her to church on Fri and had some friends from work round in the evening to have an evening of Pit! On Saturday Nicola and Lucy went back to the Hair salon run by the Orphanage to get their hair cut! The Salon has been set up as away of making money for the orphanage and offering training to some of the girls - which we think is a great example of some sustainable and wholistic development work!

The week at work as been a little bit hectic. Lucys visited a few times to help set up a database for the anti-trafficking team. Nicola has been having lots of meetings with a lady who's working for Stop the Traffik in India.

Andy's been in the office all hours trying to finish the Bamboo product for a Design Freeze at the end of March. He was involved in a big meeting on Monday (yesterday) to look at all aspects of the design with the rest of the team... so its had a thorough going over and some changes will need to be made!

The weather has also take an exciting turn with the humidity arriving rapidly leading to lots of storms. On Sunday last week (29th) we had hailstones the size of Golf balls!! Andy and Nicole were stranded at work until 7 and then it took them 2 hours to get home! We ended up walking down the central reservation with the water knee deep either side of us!

Yesterday(Mon 6th)disaster struck when a fire broke out in one of the local slums. The slum houses our house-helper(Halima)Jo's house-helper, works cook (Shuli) and one of our workshops guys (Massum - the zoo song guy!). Halima, Massum and Jo's house-helpers 'houses' were all completely destroyed... The rooms were made of bamboo and tin and were burnt to the grounds with them all loosing everything. Amazingly no-one died in the incident but the devastation it has caused is hard to take in. Their basic homes were literally gone.

We visited the slum this morning to try and offer our love, assistance and some food/clothing. These families had lost everything. All of the few possessions they owned. It was truly heart breaking to meet with them and see the devastation. We spoke to them for a while and was amazed to see the level of hope and positive attiude they carried around with them - even asking how the product deadline at work had gone!

I've been thinking a lot at the moment about all the 'stuff' that we often have. The computers, the TV's, all our clothes, gadjets, cooking appliances, books, dvd's etc etc... what drives us to need all these things in our lives... is my life any better for it? Am I just addicted to owning stuff - thinking that its going to make things easier, better, make me feel more secure?

And then you visit a family who only had a few pairs of clothes, a TV and some food living in a room 8ft square - and in half an hour they lose all of that - they literally have no 'stuff' whatsoever! Yet, they can still manage a smile and still want to know how you are, they're still grateful..... Kinda humbles you beyond belief and makes you think long and very hard...

Sorry for the waffle... please pray for Halima and our work colleagues in this very difficult time.

Love and Gods blessings to you all.
Andy and Nic

April Showers (In March)

2009-03-27T06:45:00.002Z

I was just reflecting on what we've done this week, since I last updated the blog and actually I'm not sure there's much to report but I'll give you a brief summary of our activities anyway.

On the work front it's been all systems go in the office and workshop as we're desperately trying to get the designs finalised by our end of March deadline. This week a new toy (I mean very important and essential power tool) arrived, which Andy and his design colleague have been playing with this week. I'm told that's it's actually a really important piece of kit and a massive help in producing a quality finish to the products in a relatively short space of time. It's quite a sight to behold when you go into the workshop though and see it in action. Initially you can't see anything because of the thick cloud of sawdust surrounding the machine (our cleaner is less that impressed with this new acquisition!). Then there's Andy and his colleague stood opposite each other, operating different parts of the machine - both wearing safety googles, gloves, aprons and backwards caps - covered in a thin layer of dust. Very entertaining for us onlookers.

We've also been spending time playing with eggs, milk and beeswax as we concoct various different natural dye and paint recipes - not as easy as you might think!

On the anti-trafficking front we've been trying to locate a girl who was trafficked from a garment factory in Dhaka at the age of about 11 into a brothel in Kolkata. She was rescued by an organisation in Kolkata and then brought back to Bangladesh. She was received by her father and is now married (aged about 16) and working back in the garment industry. We were asked to try and locate her to check on her safety and also to help her get back to Kolkata for a trial against her traffickers. I'm pleased to say that this week we managed to make contact with her and she appears to be safe at least but we are continuing to try to make contact. This week we hope to go and visit her as there's only so much you can get from speaking to someone on the phone. We suspect there's probably a lot she's not telling us about her current home situation, so hopefully we'll get a fuller picture by meeting with her.

Generally work in the office has been a bit hard going because of the really oppressive heat and quantity of power cuts. I think I've explained before about load shedding - how there's not enough power to go round, so the government distribute it to different parts of the city during the day. Where our office is located is classed as a lower priority power area, which means more power cuts for us. We have an IPS system (Like a generator) but it doesn't have a very high capacity and doesn't get enough time to re-charge between power cuts, which means that when we get a power cut we're running on no fans, definitely no AC, no lights etc. So, it can be a bit tough going, especially in the early part of the afternoon. Thankfully, as soon as we get home we can jump straight in the nice cool shower, which is wonderful after a sweaty day in the office!

This week was Independence Day in Bangladesh as the country remembers it's freedom from the control of Pakistan. So, Thursday 26th marked the 39th anniversary of the war of Independence. So, it was a national holiday and a definite feel of celebration in the air. As we walked down the street there was national flags hanging from balconies, people waving flags and wearing headbands with the flag on it. This was an important day for the local people - they are very proud of their independence and of course since it happened relatively recently it is still remembered by many people. When you talk to people you really sense their pride in their country - they are very keen to know what we think of their country and even more delighted when we respond with positive opinions of Bangladesh.

Unfortuantely, like any war, certain wounds have been slow to heal. There is still a deep feeling of hostility towards Pakistan (and for that matter any other country that is seen to support Pakistan). In addition, prior to the war there were Urdu-speaking Pakistanis who settled in Bangladesh. Following the war those that were unable to escape back to their own country got stranded and ended up living in camps across the country. Even today these camps still exist and there is one very close to our office. Because these communities (known as Bihari communities) are not technically Bangladesh nationals they have been denied the basic rights of a Bangladeshi - like education, health care, jobs and are very excluded from society. Over 30 years on they have technically been given citizenship but are still treated as an excluded community. This is one of the sadest oucomes of the 1971 war.

Anyway, since we got a bonus extra day of holiday we took the opportunity to have some people round from the church we go to on Saturday evening. We had the family round, whose house we use for the Saturday church and also the leader of the church we go to on Friday and his wife. As you can imagine, cooking for Bangladeshi's I was a little nervous. After much deliberation we chose to give them a taste of England and cooked the classic Spaghetti Bolognase with roast vegetables and banoffi pie for pudding.

Entertaining in Bangladesh is very strange because all the socialising happens before eating and then everyone leaves as soon as dinner is over - none of this sitting around over a cup of coffe and an After Eight. So, generally the woman spends the whole evening in the kitchen, serves the food, waits until everyone has eaten and then she eats when everyone's left. I fulfilled most of this etiquette but gave up when it came to serving out and waiting til later to eat (my appetite didn't hold out that long!).

We had a very nice evening chatting and playing with the two kids. We were also blessed to only have 1 power cut, rather than the usual 3 that we've been having of late. I think the food went down mostly okay although there was definite uncertainty to begin with - especially when we handed forks around to eat with!

Anyway, today saw the first rains of the season. We were told to expect storms in April, so today we got a taster. It all started yesterday with some very welcome high winds and then early this morning the winds were howling and there was a heavy downpour. Sadly it didn't last very long but it was lovely to have a refreshing breeze blowing through.

We're very much looking forward to some more of that kind of weather because this last week has been pretty toasty that's for sure.

So, I better sign off as it's time for church.

Have a great week and please keep us updated with your news - we love to hear what's going on back home.

Oh, just before I go, thanks to those of you who have requested a password - unfortunately we've had a bif of difficulty putting a password on but as soon as we figure out how to overcome the glitches we'll drop you an email.

Love Nic and Andy

2009-03-17T15:46:00.005Z

Hi everyone,

Things are continuing to progress well both at work and at church. We’re having a busy month so far with lots going on with finalising products for OTL and many meetings and planning for Stop the Traffik. Last week there were some visitors from an organisation in India, who are involved in anti human trafficking work in India, so wanted to meet organisations doing similar work in Bangladesh. Nic was busy sorting out their schedule for their trip and attending various meetings with these visitors. Whilst it was pretty chaotic (especially trying to communicate with local drivers over the phone using a very limited amount of Bangla) the meetings all went well and we managed to form some good relationships.

The other big news on the STOP THE TRAFFIK front is that Cadburys have announced that as of the summer their Dairy Milk range will be "Fairtrade" and therefore "traffik free". This is great news and a wonderful testimony to all the people around the world who have been involved (at whatever level) in getting the big chocolate companies to change their practices. It's so exciting to know that there will be a few less children been exploited in awful conditions on the cocoa farms and a few more people being employed, working in good conditions, being paid enough to feed their families.

Since the last blog posting Andy took a trip up to our factory site in Nilphamari with his design colleague and Ben, the latest addition to the team who is basically the business manager in Nilphamari. He had a great time briefing the new workers, planning production, testing out some new tools and safety equipment (and watching the odd Hindi movie).

On Tuesday 10th March it was a national holiday here, which meant the day off for us. So, in the morning Andy arrived back from Nilphamari having travelled on the overnight train.After a morning coffee with our neighbour we went to meet some young people from church for lunch, including a fieldworker from Australia, whose birthday it was and who was due to leave 2 days later. We then went to play basketball with some of these young people (not so easy in flip flops, 34 C and a Shalwa Kamiz!) After that we went to see a couple from the church, who have recently had a baby - good opportunity for a cuddle with the new arrival.

At the weekend we were privileged to be able to take a trip to Khulna in the south of the country with one of the church members. We went to visit some of his family, old friends and people who are keen to know more about the bible. We left late on Thursday evening, taking the overnight green line bus to the southern city.

Having had some poor bus experiences previously we decided to travel in ‘luxury’ using a slightly posher bus service than we're used to. The bus came complete with air conditioning, blankets, water and no-one being sick! (which Nicola was most relieved about).

We got to a town near Kulna at about 6.45am and were met off the bus by a very excited young lad who had come to receive us. We travelled back to his house on a rickshaw van and were looked after by his family and relatives.

We arrived at this lovely little village nestled away amongst some trees and gardens. This village was actually quite large and kind of divided into little clusters - with one cluster being Christian, one being Hindu and one being Muslim. We were taken to this lad's house, which was also next door to two other houses belonging to his relatives. The house we went to was a relatively large concrete house with a tin lid. The other two were smallr, one room bamboo huts.

The village shared a cow where they got their milk from (enough for 6 families) and there was a shared well where they got their water from. There was also a small vegetable plot where they shared some local produce.

After freshning up we were served a large breakfast of Ruti (Chapati), fried egg, some kind of shredded vegetable curry and fruit as well as a lovely cup of tea, containing very fresh milk.

We were then taken on a tour of the village where we were invited into numerous peoples' houses. By 9.30am we had been to 3 peoples' houses - all of which gave us snacks and tea! As you can imagine we were feeling very full and slightly apprehensive about how our guts would respond to all this different food. As you may have picked up from previous blog postings, food really is the language of love here. People are so hospitable and show their love for you in welcoming you into their homes and feeding you. It was such a privilege to be welcomed by so many peope and to see inside their humble houses.

After our stroll we then had a bit of a rest and went to spend some time with the chap from the church we had travelled down with and his family; in particular his niece, who is suffeirng a lot of personal difficulties with her husband (a very heart wrenching story!). Whilst not wanting to go into too much detail, it is suffice to say that her husband is treating her and her 2 children very badly and due to the nature of this culture it is very difficult for this young lady to see any way out. Hopefully God will show us some way of helping her; there are a couple of doors that have opened already, so we'll push them and see what happens.

We then had a huge lunch (yes, more food!). Following that we had a bit of a rest and then later in the afternoon Andy did a bible talk to a group of young Christians in the local baptist church. It was hugely encouraging to see their enthusiasm and just their desire to know God and understand the scriptures. Some had even travelled over 15km to get there by local transport at their own cost. I'm sure this enthusiasm is largely due to having far less distractions in their lives than we do in the West.

After the bible study we went back for afternoon tea, consisting of warm milk, biscuits, fruit and this kind of home made jelly thing (which was more like really thick jam than jelly). The fresh milk was a real treat, having never drank fresh milk before - we could definitely get used to it and will certainly be looking at the possibility of getting a cow back in the UK.

During the course of the afternoon and evening we met more people and spent time with our church member's family, which was lovely. We shared some dinner with them and then left at about 9.30pm for the night bus, which was due to leave at 10pm.

Before we left we heard on the news that there was a big fire at a large shopping mall in Dhaka. Fortunately there weren't too many casualties because the fire struck the upper floors, which were all offices and being a Friday most of the offices would have been shut. Nonetheless it was pretty frightning for those concerned and pretty much brought the city to a stand still, particularly since it took over 5 hours to put out the blaze.

After a very uneventful journey back we arrived in Dhaka at 6.00am on Saturday morning. We then spent the day doing a bit of shopping, relaixing at the Club and then attending the recently established church in the evvening, which Andy was speaking at. As usual it was bible study by candle light because of the power cuts but very lovely all the same - it made for a very nice atmosphere (even if we had to slightly strain to see our bibles).

The week so far has been fairly quiet at work. The most eventful thing that we've done is to sort out our visas. It was a very strange experience, as experiences go, which involved going to the visa office and speaking to the deputy director there to get clarification on the visa application process. We were most surprised when she informed us that our current visa, despite expiring on 21st March, allows us to stay up to a further 6 months.

Not content with this answer we then took a trip to the Immigration Office at the airport. After speaking to numerous police officers of varying ranks it seemed that the position is as set out by the Deputy Director. So, looks like we're all set for the next few months and have saved ourselves the hastle and expense of re-applying. The only downside is that we can't leave and re-enter the country without applying for a new visa but that's a small price to pay.

We're still somewhat sceptical and probably will be until we board the plane in June but then it's in God's hands, now so really nothing to worry about. Whatever happens it will all work out.

Hope all's well in the UK and the soft light of spring is beginning to dawn. We hear that the first lambs have started to appear in the fields, which are undoubtedly very cute.

We'll write soon.

Love Nic and Andy x

P.S. We'll soon be passwording our blog so please email us asap at the address at the top if you want the password.

What a jolly holiday.

2009-03-03T15:27:00.003Z

Well we're back from our hols and feeling fully refreshed and raring to go.

The past few weeks have been pretty hectic, as you may have spotted from previous postings but after a mad rush to get everything completed before holiday we finally made it to India.

Prior to our departure on 19th February, Nic had a lot of work to complete following on from the anti-trafficking seminar and planning the anti-trafficking strategy for the next few years. Andy was also busy getting some designs finished to be worked on whilst we were away.

Also, at the last minute we became involved in sorting out a new flat for the local church we are involved with. As you may have picked up on from previous blogs, we have been supporting a study group from the church on a Saturday evening. Since the study groups seem to be addressing a certain need the church has decided to form a new church out of this study group, which we're really excited about. The study group, up til now, has been held in one of the members' tiny flats, with us all squeezed into their bedroom (which also serves as a lounge and dining room), so it was decided that the family should relocate to a bigger flat and the church would support them financially in order to enable room for the church to grow.

So, the flat hunting commenced a few weeks ago but right before we left a great flat became available in the right location, so Andy went to view it with another member of the church and the family who will be living there. After a mutual consensus it was agreed that this would be perfect, so it seems that our new church is on the move and ready to begin (how exciting!)

The following day we got up for our early flight to Kolkata. Once in Kolkata we met our driver for the day and headed off to the Bangladesh High Commission to get our visas renewed with tonnes of documents in hand to cover all eventualities. We went to the requisite booth, handed over our forms, had a nice chat with the guy in the booth and then were told we had to have an interview with the Deputy High Commissioner (standard practice apparently). Unfortunately Nic had another meeting to attend, so Andy was flying solo for the interview.

Sadly the interview didn't go as well as expected and our visa application got rejected (DOH!), so we've got until 21st March to figure out another strategy for acquiring a Visa. We think we might try applying in country but watch this space....

Whilst this was going on Nic attended a meeting in Kolkata with an orrganisation involved in the rescue of trafficking survivors and the prosecution of traffickers. It was a really useful meeting and gave a good insight into the laborious process of repatriating survivors to Bangladesh from India. Unfortunately the process of getting the survivors back across the border can be a long traumatic experience. Once the survivor has been found in India with no supporting papers they have to be "detained" whilst they go through a court process to determine that they are Bangladeshi nationals and should be taken back to their country. Gathering the evidence to support their claim that they're Bangladeshis isn't easy in a country where birth registrations are not common place, very few people have passports, the survivors may not remember their previous address (if they were trafficked as an infant) and the parents' full names may not be known. It can take a minimum of 6 months before the survivor is in a position to cross the border, during which time they have had to be detained in a shelter home. Not ideal as you may appreciate and definitely an area that needs improving.

Anyway, all in all a useful meeting - far more productive than the High Commissioner meeting.

Following our meetings we went for a bite to eat at a nearby shopping mall. We were very surprised to see Next, Marks and Spencers, Pumpkin Patch etc in this shopping mall and the majority of people speaking English - far more advanced than Bangaldesh, despite being only next door. There is clearly a lot of wealth in Kolkata and a significant number of educated people, having a good command of English and usually speaking at least another 2 languages (Hindi + Bangla).

After our shopping trip we drove for a couple of hours to our resort in Raichak, which is about 60km south of Kolkata, on the banks of the River Ganges.

The resort was absolutely beautiful - lots of space to relax, swim and totally unwind - just what we needed. Also, as the resort was mostly empty the staff were extremely attentive (to say the least), or maybe they were just bored but they were more or less falling over themselves to open doors for us, fetch a golf buggy to take us somewhere, call us at the end of the day to see if we'd had a nice day. Anyway, whatever the reason it was very nice to be tended to for the week.

So, after 6 days of total relaxation, good food and lovely hot sunshine we flew up to Darjeeling where we spent a couple of days exploring this post-colonial tea region.

It was a total contrast to our previous resort. For starters it was much much colder. So much so that we had to buy hats, gloves, scarves and fleeces on arrival (mainly to compensate for the lack of heating in our hotel but also because it was freezing). The area was well geared to tourists and there was a significant backpacking community up there, passing through on their tour of Asia.

Whilst we were there we: explored the local town, which was far bigger than we were expecting; took a ride on the "toy train", which is the old train which transported wealthy people from Kolkata to Darjeeling to escape the heat in summer; took a tour of various local sights - everything from a Buddhist monastry to the local tea gardens; sampled the wonderful Indian cuisine and of course drank lots and lots of chai (tea) - which was very welcome in the cold weather.

All in all a very nice, relaxing holiday and very enjoyable to see a few different sights of India.
However, it was a bit strange to see tourists again - living in a country like Bangladesh tourists really aren't common place as the country isn't geared to tourism, so it was very odd being with tourists again. There was a part of us that felt a bit uncomfortable with it and like we wanted to experience new things that most people don't get to experience (much like we do in Bangladesh) but then we had to remember that tourism has played such a major roll in lifting countries like India out of the severe poverty they were in only a few years ago, so really we shouldn't complain.

It was also odd seeing local people with such great wealth, since it really isn't as common in Bangladesh, although clearly there is wealth around. It seems that India has now become a country of two extremes - the extremely poor and the extremely rich. It's been said to me before that Bangladesh isn't a poor country but it is being kept poor by the minority of those who have wealth. It seems like this is even more true for India, which we find absolutely tragic.

Despite being in India only a short time, we were surprised by how different the cultures and people were from Bangladesh, even though the countries are neighbours. I suppose we naively assumed that there would be a lot of similarities between two countries that used to be the same country. Maybe it's something to do with the difference in religions, maybe it's because Bangladesh is such a young country, or maybe it's to do with the economic gap but whatever it is, it really showed us how wonderfully different and individual God has created us and how there is so much around us that goes into making us the people we are today. Sometimes we ponder where we would be now if we had been born in a country like Bangladesh and how we would view the world. Anyway, these ponderings are getting to be far too philosophical for a simple travel blog, so we'll leave it there.

After our return from Darjeeling we spent a night in Kolkata close to the airport then said goodbye to Andy's folks as we set off back to Dhaka and they spent the day in Kolkata awaiting their long journey back to the UK that evening.

Whilst it was lovely to be on holiday we are very glad to be back in Bangladesh and to be cracking on with work once more and we're looking forward to all the fun and challenges that lie ahead.

Oh, just before we go we should probably mention that there have been some fairly serious political issues here whilst we were away - basically one military group (the Bangladeshi Riffles) opened fire on Army officers, killing up to 100 and then burying them in mass graves. In case you've picked up on this in the English press, the problem is now over with very little impact to the rest of the country. In fact, we're told that people who were living here barely new it was going on, save for the reportings in the press the following mornings. It was all contained within the official army areas (cantonement) in the country, so presented very little threat to the general public. Whilst we are all safe, it was clearly very traumatic for the families of those involved and really shook the country up, so we remember the families and this nation in our prayers and eagerly await the day when peace will reign and the sight of guns, bullet holes and violence will be no more.

We'll try and write again soon.

Love, the Holiday-makersers x

Catching up

2009-02-14T15:34:00.002Z

Hi folks

It seems like ages since we've done a proper posting, so I guess we've got some catching up to do.

Last time we wrote Nic had just come back from Rajshahi I think. Since then we've had a really good couple of weeks. At work we've both had a really hectic time. Nic's been organising a seminar with STOP THE TRAFFIK for a lot of organisations that are involved in anti-trafficking work in Bangladesh. I'm pleased to say that the seminar went really well; it was well attended and very beneficial from our percpective. And even more amazingly Nic has now learned how to Alt Tab between screens (new-found techno wizz!)

Andy's been kept busy doing a lot of graphic design work for the seminar and despite a lot of rushing around and last minute adjustments then end products look fab!

On 4th February (seems like ages ago now) our house helper invited us to her house in a slum near our office. So, we trotted off after work with our colleague, who also lives in the same slum. As we approached we walked down a cobbled street with open drains on each side and a few small shops. Running alongside this road was the slum houses, which are essentially small bamboo shacks with corregated tin roofs.

We were greeted by our house helper's youngest daughter running up to greet us with a beautiful big grin on her face. Not far behind her was our house helper with her other daughter and some friends. We were showed along a narrow alley to her house, which was one room which just about fitted a double bed in and a book shelf. There was also an upstairs, which her son slept in and which you had to climb a ladder to get to. The walls were very thin bamboo sheets, in fact they were so thin that every so often we could see 2 pairs of little eyes looking through from next door.

As we sat on the bed there were a group of our house helper's friends who were there and we got plied with biscuits, crisps, drink and this really tasty sweet rice Bangladeshi dish (yummm!)

After that we got taken to 2 other peoples' houses and we had to put off other invites. At each house we got given food and drink, which was amazing. We were deeply humbled be peoples' hospitality and generosity. Despite having so little the sense of community and family was amazing and their hospitality was overwhelming.

I'm not sure whether we've mentioned this but somehow over here the locals have decided that Andy bears a striking resemblence to Mr Bean (yes, Mr Bean is known and very popular here), so when we went to the slum this got round so that every house we visited referred to Andy as Mr Bean - they thought it was hilarious!

Anyway, we had a really nice time and were so grateful to be invited.

Then, the next thing to happen here was Andy's parents arrived on Thursday 6th February. They arrived safely, despite all the hussle and bustle and Dhaka airport and so far things have gone well.

A couple of days after they arrived we took them to our church home group, On of the attendees at the home group unfortunately has been quite unwell over the past couple of years, so has stuggled to find work. We commissioned him and his to make us a traditional Bangaldeshi woven stool, which was excellent, so we subsequently asked for a couple of waste paper baskets. Anyway, after home group he invited us to his house to see the progress of our waste paper baskets. This was quite an adventure - particularly for the new comers as we got taken down smaller, darker and narrower alley ways to a small slum area near our home group.

The baskets were excellent - we were so impressed with how skilled he and his wife were, particularly when they're working with such few resources. What a shame that they can't make an income from it. The local church members are trying to offer advice and support to help this couple and we are pitching in where we can.

Anyway, Andy's parents' blog explains in more detail what they have been up to but I guess the main thing that concerns us is that we took them on a trip up to Nilphamari. We made the 8hr train trip up there, stayed a night in the lovely Leprosy Mission Guest House and then visited our factory site and the local village during the day. We had a lovely time meeting the villagers and our team up there and I think we caused a bit of a stir (as you tend to do if you have white skin!), particularly when we were taken to a local market.

We were only in Nilphamari for a couple of days and then Andy and I have been in and out of the office since.

Today we went on a staff trip up the river on a boat. We stopped at a hindu temple and 200 yr old colonial building, which has kind of been left to rot, which is such a shame because it looks like it might have been quite an impressive building in it's day.

We also stopped at a place where people were weaving beautiful saris. The work was absolutely amazing. It was so inctricate that it would take 2 people up to 6 months to make one Sari. I even had a go at a bit of weaving and sat chatting to a happy couple who were married and working together at the loom - how wonderful!

What was a bit upsetting was when we learned that children as young as 9 would work at the place and I guess would work there for many long years after that. The conditions were relatively good but awful that children that young should be working there. I guess when it comes down to a choice of whether to eat or get an education eating comes first.

I think I've waffled on for long enough now.

Thank you to all of you who are keeping up with our blog; it means a lot to us to know that people are following it. We'll post some pics and videos up in the next few days, so keep an eye out for it.

Love Nic and Andy.

Sorry about the delay....

2009-02-14T02:30:00.002Z

Hi everyone,

Just a quick note to apolgise for the lack of blog postings recently.... We've both been busy with work (especially Nicola who has spent a long time organising a Stop the Traffik conference for last week)

We've also had my Mum and Dad come to stay so in spare moments have been showing them some of the highs and lows of this amazing place!!

We'll write more informed posting tomorrow and add some pictures so cehck back soon!

Andy and Nic x

Visit to Rajshahi

2009-02-03T14:54:00.002Z

Last week I was very privileged to travel to Rajshahi, which is a University town on the West of the country. My colleague and I left on Sunday 25th January by coach from Dhaka in the afternoon. We travelled on a lovely AC coach, which totally reformed my impression of coach travel in Bangladesh - lots of room, not too many people, a film on route, complimentary bottled water and even a nice service station on the way; can't be bad.

The trip was supposed to take 5 hours but in the end it took about 6.5 hours because the fog was so bad; I've never seen such thick fog as here - something to do with the humidity during the day and then the cold at night.

Anyway, we arrived late at about 10.30pm and then took a rickshaw to our friends' flat, which is in a hospital compound.

The following day we went to visit a shelter home, which was mostly for trafficking survivors (but not exclusively). We also visited two drop in centres for street children (mostly children of sex workers) and a social community centre for an excluded Hindu community. These projects were great. The kids at all the centres were amazing. At the shelter they performed a cultural song and dance for us and we in turn taught them "Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" as well as "If you're happy and you know it clap your hands", which seemed to go down pretty well. As always I was very struck with how content the kids seemed on the surface but knowing that if you scratched away even a little bit there would be a how world of hurt, abuse and pain.

One of the girls there, who can't have been more than 8 years old had been ganged raped, another young lady had had acid thrown at her by her husband when she was 7 mths pregnant and another girl of about 13 arrived at the shelter whilst we were there having been trafficked from her village and then drugged to a state of unconsciousness so that she could be married and then trafficked on. I don't write these stories to cause alarm but I suppose to try and capture some of the awful injustices going on in the world and maybe to give you a deeper insight if you are praying for these issues. With issues like trafficking it can be easy to take an academic view of it, especially in the West when we're not so directly staring the issue in the face, so sometimes it's helpful to hear the reality of the problem.

I know before I came out here I felt one step removed from the problem and I guess it didn't play on my heart and mind as much as it should have done but now that I'm beginning to hear and understand the stories my heart is moved to respond. In fact sometimes it gets so underneath my skin that I feel desparate to go and get all those precious survivors and bring them back to their homes but unfortunately it's not that easy. Fortunately we have a God who is bigger than any trafficker, so I continue to pray that God would intervene in what seems like an impossible situation.

When we went to the drop in centres I played a few games of Carom (very big here) with the kids and chatted to some of them. Whilst the facilities were very basic it is wonderful that there are places like that for kids to go and play, learn, rest and get fed. The alternative is that they would be on the street, probably having to find some kind of work like shoe shining, begging or street cleaning.

The social centre was really fun. It was in the slum area of town, down one of the narrow passageways. It's basically a small concrete unit with a steel roof - about the size of a single garage and it was jam-packed with kids and became even more jam-packed as word got out that the foreigners were around.

We chatted to the kids, heard some Hindi songs and taught them the same English songs we'd done in the shelter. That went down really well- they thought it was hilarious! After that we went for a tour of the slum, which was really interesting. The slum wasn't the worse one I've seen; the houses were fairly spacious and clean and the walls were made of concrete. Having said that the sanitation was still significantly lacking and the houses really were crammed on top of each other.

It's always a bit of an event when foreigners visit - the kids were all running ahead of us to tell their families and they were hanging of us, shaking our hands, blowing kisses and all sorts - I felt like the Pide Piper of Hamlin! It was a truly amazing experience; just great spending time with such happy, welcoming people.

The following morning we travelled back by train to Dhaka. Ironically the train's are slower than the buses but the timings are a bit more reliable. The journey took us just over 6 hours, rather than the 5 the bus takes. Unfortunately our carriage was right at the end next to the kitchen. It was kind of interesting because you could see them cooking away on the floor on the stove - the way they would in a normal kitchen and then there was a steady stream of men coming in and out trying to sell tea and curry-based snacks.

Anyway, all in all a very positive and enlightening trip.

Please continue to email us, comment on the postings, or write us a facebook message. We may not always reply but your comments are always appreciated.

A boat trip from Old Dhaka

2009-01-31T11:04:00.002Z

Last weekend we fully intended to write this blog and then with one thing and another we never got round to it.

Actually, it was getting to the end of the week and we thought we wouldn't have much to report on the weekly blog but then no sooner had we encountered those thought and we had a rather interesting weekend....

Let me start from the beginning. This blog covers the period 18th Jan to 25th Jan.

During that week our boss from the UK arrived (I think technically he's the commercial director, or business advisor or something anyway, he basically oversees the business side of what Oasis do). So, it was another hectic time in the office as we were preparing for meetings, attending meetings and getting products ready to discuss with the boss. Andy and his team were desparately trying to get the products ready so our boss would have some positive comments to take back to our customers in the UK. Our ultimate deadline for this phase of the design work has been 1st Feburary because that's when the country director here returns to the UK for more meetings with potential investors and customers and will be taking products with him.

So, despite it being hectic for us there's not a lot to report on the blog on that front.

However, when we got to the weekend it was shaping up to be a normal weekend; we went to church on Friday as usual for the morning study class, lunch and then the main afternoon service. On Saturday we were invited to lunch by a friend over who was soon to be leaving, so a few of us went for a bite to eat. We had planned nothing more other than maybe a swim and a bit of a relax before the evening study class. However whilst at lunch our manager and the UK boss decided to take a trip to Old Dhaka for a boat ride and invited us along.

Old Dhaka is one of those amazing places where it's a hive of small streets, lots of rickshaws and some interesting old buildings intermingled with them all. We drove down in the Oasis car, which was interesting trying to get through this sea of rickshaws.

Nevertheless we eventually made it through to the port. We parked the car up in what was supposed to be a car park but which was a long way from NCP standards and entered the port area. There were loads of big cargo ships moored up. We boarded one to get to a smaller rowing boat.

As we walked through this cargo boat it really was like something from 150 years ago. There were people sitting on the floor in the boat maybe selling fruit, or clutching a rolled up blanket, or selling some nuts or something. There were other folk using it as a passageway onto other boats. There were others loading and unloading cargo on their heads (it's the Banlgadeshi way). The one consistent thing amongst all this was that the majority of heads turned in our direction as we trundled through the boat to sounds of "Boss", "Bideshi", "your country?".

Anyway, when we reached the back of the boat we then saw our vessel. It was kind of like a gondala in shape - very close the water with a man standing at the back rowing using a long padel which went deep into the water. We clambered over the big boat's chains to get onto this little boat.

As we got on we couldn't help but notice the awful condition of the water - it was extremely dark, there was all kinds of rubbish floating in it and other less desirable things. In fact, right next to our boat was a large floating poo (not sure whether I can get away with writing that on a blog but I guess it's done now). You can imagine my concern as I set anxiously on the floor of the boat waiting for the other 3 in our party to get in, who all happened to be 6'3" men!

Anyway, despite some small rocking we made it out into Dhaka harbour and spent the next hour floating between all the big cruise and cargo ships. It was wonderful! So exciting to see such a large working port and there were so many contrasts. One minute we'd be passing the shore lined with rubbish with people looking for any useful remains in amongst it and then we'd see all this beautiful fresh fruit and veg being unloaded, or sorted through. We'd pass these water side slum houses and then see the large red setting sun shimmering over the water. We would pass these large, impersonal, grubby cargo ships and then see a bunch of kids playing around and having fun on one of the fishing boats. So much beauty in amongst so much yuk!

I guess that's the glories of God's creation shining through in spite of all man's rubbish around.

It was a real privilege to be able to see this part of Dhaka and to see it in this very authentic way. Everything about that part of Dhaka really seemed so antiquated it made me wonder how much it had changed since the Brits left and how much it would have changed if we came back in 50 yrs time.

After our tour round the harbour we hopped back on board the big ship again. Unfortunately in the process I dropped my flip flop into one of the engine holes, which was extremely embarrassing, since it is very difficult to do anything discretely around here and I of course caused a lot of fuss and attention. Anyway, the good news is I got my flip flop back and I made sure I gave my foot a good old scrub down afterwards.

After our eventful afternoon out we then went to a quiz at the Bagha club. I am ashamed to say we did extremely badly - clearly need to play trivial pursuit a bit more often to get into Quiz shape.

Think that's about all to bring that part of the blog up to date.

We'll write about this week's experiences in another posting.

Just another week in Bangladesh.

2009-01-18T12:25:00.003Z

Seems like another week has flown by. It's been another busy week for us and a particularly important week for the business.

This week we did further detailed planning to our business plan for this year and due to certain circumstances arising we now have quite a significant amount of goods to produce and not a lot of time to do it, so we had to adjust our business plan to see how we could most effectively get the goods to market by the deadline as well as considering long term recruitment, investment and the like - so a pretty important and busy week.

As you can imagine it's been all systems go on the workshop as the prototypes are finalised and the materials are being chosen, which meant a few late nights in the office for us (more particularly for Andy).

Whilst this has been going on I have been doing further research and policy-writing on how our business model fits with Fairtrade and what we have to do to comply with the many many requirements. I had a good meeting with the local Fairtrade forum director, who gave me some useful insights into what we could do to ensure we are complying with the relevant standards.

I have also been contintuing my research into potential shelter homes for our trafficking survivors to come back to from India (they are currently in a half way house waiting to return). I went to a great centre in a village about 1.5 hours outside Dhaka, which is a purpose-built village for vulnerable women and their children. They have a school, farmland, fishing lakes, vocational training, a psycho-social building and income generating activities - the whole package. What was so good about it was the holistic feel to the centre. For example, most of the food consumed by the beneficiaries is grown on site and some of the waste is used in their income-generating activities. For example, the onion shells are used to make dyes for the paper and woven fabrics they produce - how wonderful!

I have also visited a shelter home specifically for trafficking survivors but also for children who have been victims of sexual exploitation. Whilst the centre was great I found it really upsetting and deeply challenging. As I walked round and spent time with the young people they were just like any other normal child - playing with toys, studying, running around and then my mind kept coming back to the fact that these children may have been raped, trafficked or sexually exploited. Such happy innocent faces masking a whole world of horrific injustice - it grieves me to think that children can be treated in such a way and worse stilll to know that most of their families won't want to or won't be able to take them back.

Some of the children performed a song and dance that nearly reduced me to tears because there were these beautiful young children perfoming songs about the kind of lives they should have had but will never be able to experience. One of the folk songs they did talked about flying like a bird in the garden free from cares. This particular song / dance was performed by one girl, who can't have been more than 12 years old who had been raped only a few months earlier! Thinking about it now as I write is really stirring my emotions.

Anyway, besides these visits we've both enjoyed the new challenges we're facing at work, especially now the projects are both really taking off.

Outside of work we've also had a great week. We spent a lot of time on Saturday around our local Bazaar (market), lapping up the atmosphere and playing the haggling game with the shopkeepers. They love to haggle here and I think they feel a bit cheated if we haven't haggled. I must admit Andy's much better at it than I am and much more enters into the spirit of it. It's not long before I get bored of haggling and just agree to the price but Andy drives a much harder bargain!

So, after an exhausting bazaar trip and then we rewarded ourselves with lunch at an art cafe near us and a much-needed lassi YUMMM!

In the evening we went to the bible study group that we attend every week, which was really good. I think the locals appreciate having us around and we certainly love their company. They are so hospitable and every time we go we learn what it means to have a servant-heart.

I think that about sums up our week. We have of course done the usual church-going on Friday and study group on Monday and Tuesday, so we're keeping ourselves busy. This week we even managed to squeeze in a game of pool and some toffee and apple crumble at the Bagha club, which was a lovely way to relax.

So, all in all a great week and we looking forward to the new challenges that this week will bring.

Much love

Nic and Andy x

Back to work with lots to do.....

2009-01-10T04:25:00.004Z

Hi everyone,

Hope your all well and dandy?! We've had a good week back at work with lots and lots going on..

Most people in the office returned from their Christmas break on Sunday so we had a day catching up with emails and sorting out things for a big new years planning meeting on Monday.

Nicola and I were both involved in the meeting on Monday which took the whole day. We discussed how the business plan was progressing and what our aims were for the coming year, as well as ironing out a few kinks and details along the way. This is a big year for Oasis Transformation Ltd as we hope to start production of products around June.

So my design colleague and I need to finalise our products spending a lot of time considering how they can be manufactured in bulk. We're planning to use some machinery in our factory along with hand skills so key process and methods need to be well thought through. Our boss is heading back to the UK in a month so we also need to develop some more samples for him to show to investors and buyers.

Nicola is also hard at now looking at achieving Fair Trade status and dealing with some compliance issues for our factory and products. Shes also had two meetings this week relating to the anti-trafficking work she is doing. This is also a big year for our community programs as the school has employed some new staff and Stop the Traffik work is set to start after a long time researching and understanding the key issues and where we can best provide support.

We were also joined by a 'Global Team' from the UK. They're a group of students who are here for 3 months helping out within the Oasis, especially its school and also some other projects in Dhaka.

Away from the business of work we attended a home bible study group in someones home on Tuesday which was great although I had to keep running out to help my parents sort out some Visa issues!

On Friday we went to the wedding of one of the Christadelphian church members. It was at a local Bengali Church called St Thomas and was a really nice occasion. There were loads of decorations all over the hall and afterwards we all had our photos taken with the 'happy' couple before we shared a meal.

I say 'happy' couple as the bride was quite upset - as is often the case at Bengali weddings the bride has mixed emotions because she is often very sad to be leaving her family behind and moving in with a new family. The traditional custom here is for the bride and groom to live with the grooms family from here on in so it can be quite a change for the bride to cope with!!

After the service we headed on to the oldest church in Dhaka to see a carol service. This was situated in old Dhaka with its tight streets full of people, rickshaws, sellers of every kind and general chaos and mess!! We stopped the CNG close by and took a walk to get to the church. It was an impressive Armenian Church (who celebrate the birth of Jesus on Jan 6th) and was very traditional with pews and lots of candles and incense stuff.

Cantemus choir sang and we joined in on the Carols, afterwards sharing some food in the parsonage.

Today (Saturday) Nicola and I are hosting the team for some lunch to get to know them a bit better..

Love to all,

Andy and Nic

Happy New Year

2009-01-01T12:28:00.002Z

Happy New Year everyone.

Hope you all had a great Christmas and enjoyed all the New Year celebrations. For our part we've got loads to tell you, so I suppose I ought to begin.

Since the last blog our Christmas plans altered slightly. Andy got ill, so unfortunately we couldn't leave for bible school with the rest of the party and ended up travelling up by public bus on Christmas Day with another chap from the church to allow time for Andy to finish his antibiotics and recover.

Prior to going we managed to squueze another Christmas dinner in on Christmas Eve at the Bagha club - -ummm! The club was empty because lots of people had gone home for Christmas but we happened to bump into a couple of British lads who were hitch hiking their way from London to Malaysia and had got stuck in Bangladesh whilst waiting to cross into Burma. They left in July and travelled all the way without using planes or trains and without spending a single penny on transport. As you can imagine they had a few good stories to tell. We spent the afternoon with them and they accompanied us to the orphanage we visited a few weeks ago, where we spent some time playing with the kids.

So Christmas morning off we set ipod stocked with Christmas tunes, festive squashed tuna sandwiches in hand and some sweets for the journey. Well we were only 5 minutes in when a lady in front of us started being sick out the window. She was shortly joined by her daughter. This persisted consistantly for the entire 5 hour journey! As you can imagine we were put right off our squashed tuna sarnies, althoughI must admit this poor family in front had a much worse time of the journey than we did.

Anyway we made it safe and sound and we very much enjoyed the next 3 days spent with members of the church and their families. Andy ended up doing a couple of bible schools and I (Nic) did one Sunday school lesson. We had great fun learning Bangla Sunday school songs, visiting a tea garden, playing Badminton at midnight and dancing to Bangla tunes on the coach journey home. It was so lovely to get to know the local church members better and especially spending time with all the young people. A very different Christmas I'm sure you'll agree. We very much missed our lovely English Christmas with all of you but doing something so different made up for it.

The day after we returned it was election day and Andy's birthday. We were advised to stay in doors because the local law enforcers were expecting rioting and protests, so we stayed with a work colleague but as the morning progressed it was all very quiet, so we went for a wander round and ended up going into a polling station. It was all very peaceful and actually quite a fun family atmosphere. Andy was wearing his birthday lungi, so attracted quite a crowd and even got his photo taken by one of the local newspapers and did and interview about his Bangla attire. We were most shocked to find that his photo and story actually made it into the paper the following day.

The day after the election we went to work, which was pretty sparse as most of the office are still on Christmas holidays but it was a good opportunity to catch up on a few of those jobs that we had been putting off. In the evening we went to a church study group on the other side of town, which was really good.

On New Year's Eve we went to work during the day and then in the evening we didn't do anything elaborate, we just went for a lovely meal locally and then back for an early night and a film - very dull but just what we needed. It didn't feel like New Year's eve at all, especially with no fireworks or fancy dress parties to attend. Over here they don't make a big deal of this New Year - their new year happens in April, so that's when all the festivities take place. Although, there was a fair amount of frevolity taking place.

Today (New Year's day) we had a group of young people round from church for lunch and a few games - it's so funny seeing Bangladeshis play the animal game and spoons (if you don't know those games let us know - they're hilarious); amazing how those games transcend all language barriers!

In case you're wondering we haven't really made any New Year's resolutions this year - we usually end up getting very depressed in 2 months time when we realise that we've broken nearly all of them.

However, our hope and prayer for 2009 is that: God would continue to bless us throughout the year as He has through 2008; that we would be able to see hope in the hopeless and find a shining light wherever in the world we are and above all; that more people would be blessed by the great love of God.

May you be blessed throughout 2009.

Andy and Nic x

Merry Christmas

2008-12-22T15:50:00.002Z

Hi folks

Just wanted to wish you all a very very Merry Christmas. Hope you're all enjoying the time of year and are looking forward to tucking into some turkey, pulling some crackers or whatever it is you might be doing this Christmas.

This will certainly be a very different Christmas for us, being the first year we're away from the UK and away from our families but we've tried to enter into the Christmas spirit here in Dhaka. Even as we write this posting we're listening to "Santa Baby" on our Christmas albumn and we've put up loads of decorations in our flat.

We've managed to have one Christmas dinner and 2 mince pies, so we've not missed out entirely but they've not quite cottoned on to the concept of bread sauce yet!

We've also been to 3 carol concerts; one of which was at the British High Commissioner's House last night, so we felt very privileged to be part of that.

We're actually off to Sylhet, which is the tea garden region on the East of the country for Christmas, with our local church. There's about 70 of us going, of which most will be Bangladeshis but there'll be about 10 of us Bideshis (foreigners) tagging along. I'm not sure we'll get the traditional roast turkey and Christmas pud with brandy sauce but there might be a few carols to sing along to. We've found out that there's a Bangla version of Hark the Herald Angels Sing and Silent Night, so it might not be so different from home after all.

As we're packing ready for our Christmas trip we thought we'd share what Christmas means to us. This year, more than ever Christmas means family. Over 2000 years ago it meant the start of a new family for a young couple Bethlehem. About 30 years later it meant the start of a world-wide family centrered around Jesus, which we're blessed to be a part of and which means so much to us. In 2008 it means sharing a bond of love with the ones closest to you, even when they're thousands of miles away.

We sincerely hope that Christmas means as much to you as it does to us.

Lots and lots of Christmas love

Andy and Nic xxxx

A Bangladeshi Barn Dance

2008-12-18T15:37:00.002Z

You might think that being in a Muslim country where it's warm and they've never even heard of cranberry sauce, we'd miss all the excitement leading up to Christmas. Well you'd be wrong. I'm very pleased to say that the temperature has now dropped, the sky is grey and misty, there's fairy lights all over the place and we've got our Christmas decorations up - yay! So now feeling fully festive.

When I say the temperatures dropped, what I mean is it's gone down to a very pleasant 17 C but of course for the locals that means scarves, hats, jumpers - the full works! It actually does feel pretty chilly cause we're not getting that much sun and there's a lot of mist around but I suppose compared to the cold spell you've been experiencing it's nothing drastic.

Anyway, irrespective I think this weather's great - much easier to get into the festive spirit when it's grey and misty outside.

We went to the British club last night and managed to have a roast turkey dinner with home made mince pies to finish, accompanied by festive Christmas tunes playing in the background and lovely tacky Christmas decorations.

Tonight I've been making paper chains to add to our Christmas decorations, so our apartment is all dressed and ready for the occasion. I'm also told you can buy Christmas trees from the other side of town and even tacky flashing light things and tinsel and stuff - home away from home. I'm not sure we'll go that far but it's nice to know we can find a little corner of Christmas even here in Dhaka.

Anyway, enough of my Christmas ramblings... on to the subject of the Blog.

On Tuesday it was Victory Day here, which is where the locals were celebrating the anniversary of their victory over Pakistani rule following a 9 mth war, which ended on 16th December 1971. So for us that meant a day off work and for the locals it meant a day of flag waving, song singing and general merriment.

In the evening one of the international schools had their staff end of year party and so Andy was asked to lead a barn dance - clearly his Barn Dance calling reputation has preceeded him! So, being accompanied by a colleague on the violin and a Barn dance CD we all engaged in a bit of dosie-doeing and the occasional right-hand star. Needless to say it was lots of fun - definately not something we expected to be doing in Bangladesh.

Since then it's been a gradual wind down at the office as more and more people leave for their Christmas vacations.

We're off ourselves on the 23rd up to Sylhet, which is on the East side of the country and is said to be the coldest part of the country - yay! I never thought I'd say this but I was actually starting to miss the cold (...well slightly). The region we're going to is also the tea garden region, so is supposed to be very picturesque. We're going with the local church that we have been attending, so we're expecting a very Bangladeshi experience - we're not holding out much hope for turkey and stuffing but there might be the chance of the odd carol here and there.

There's also quite a lot of activity in relation to the forthcoming election, which is due to take place on 29th December. This election is quite a big deal over here because there's been a caretaker government in place for the past 2 years and for the majority of that time the country has been under emergency rule, so this will be the first time in 2yrs that there's an elected government in place. As a result there's a lot of demonstrations, loudspeakers chanting some election manifesto and tonnes of flyers and posters everywhere with the faces of the political leaders in place. There's nothing dangerous about the activities (in case you were wondering) but it's certainly something you can't avoid witnessing.

Anyway, hope all the Christmas plans are going well and you're all in good festive spirits.

We'll try and put up another posting before we go away.

Love Nic (and Andy) x

T-I-G-G-E-R (Grrrrr)

2008-12-14T13:04:00.000Z

So, as mentioned on our previous blog we have just returned from a lovely 5 day cruise in the Sundarbans, which is an area in the South of the country where lots of rivers connect and feed into to the Bay of Bengal.

Our trip started on Monday 8th December with a short internal flight to Jessore (only 35 mins) in the evening and then a minibus transfer to Kulna town, where we boarded our boat.

The boat slept 12 people but there were only 7 of us on board, which worked out well for us. The boat was a lovely steel ship with an engine room and crew area downstairs, the passenger sleeping area on the next level of the boat and then a dining area, outdoor bit and steering cabin on the next level.

Once we had found our cabin we had an evening meal on board and got to know our fellow passengers a bit whilst cruising a short distance to a quiter spot where we anchored for the night.

The following day we started cruising at about 8. At about 11 we stopped at a village where we had to pick up some passes from the Forestry Commission in order to enter the forest areas of the Sundarbans. This gave us the opportunity to have a wander around the village and see the final part of the Eid sacrificing, which was interesting.

The rest of the day was spent cruising, reading and sunbathing - it's a hard life!

The following day we got up early (5.30am!) for a cruise into one of the creeks adjoinging the main river on a wooden river boat - very similar to the gondolas you see in Venice. We were hoping to see the Royal Bengal Tiger but I think he must have been very shy because even after the 3rd morning of these early morning cruises the closest we got was a roar on the first morning! However, we were privileged to see all sorts of amazing wildlife - crocodiles, dolphins, snakes, lizards, beautiful kingfishers, eagles, egrets, herons, monkeys, kites, woodpeckers.

After our morning cruise we had breakfast and then we went over to an island for a stroll around the beach, a mud bath and a swim in the water (see the video for some footage of Andy really embracing the whole mud bath thing in style)!

In the afternoon after some lunch and a bit more cruising we went for a walk around the Mangrove forests. Mangroves are trees that are able to grow in salty conditions and the roots stick up out of the ground, pointing towards the sky, to allow oxygen intake. This was also really fascinating because we were able to see the devastating affects of the cyclone that struck at the start of the year, which swept everything from trees to houses up in it's path.

During our walk we were also on Tiger watch and managed to see some footprints and poo but no sightings of the actual tiger (some of the more sceptical amongst us were convinced that the tour guide were going ahead of us imprinting the paw marks into the ground to keep us tourists happy!)

We also saw the areas where the Brits manufactured salt by extracting it from the sea water and then sold it to the Indians, so not only did we have wildlife but we had history as well!

The following day after another early morning cruise we went for a walk through the lush green areas of the Sundarbans to a beautiful unspoilt beach. The walk was lovely, very pictoresque and we saw some beautiful butterflies dancing in the air, a gorgeous baby otter and some not-so-beautiful wild boar (although beautiful in their own special way I suppose).

On the beach we went for a swim, played footie and strolled around on the lovely cool sand - ummm, total bliss!

In the afternoon we headed back for Kulna, via a few pretty creeks and such things.

On our final morning we went for another tiger spotting creek trip and this time we saw a lot of local fisherman out catching shrimp and crabs. This was really interesting as well because they live on the tiny river boats for about a month at a time, sometimes with their young apprentice sons, during the good fishing season and then return back to their village. A very different way of life!

So, in the afternoon we arrived back at Kulna where we took a car ride to the airport and then had a short flight back to Dhaka.

All in all a great trip with wonderful food, good company and amazing scenery; so great to see the different ways in which God's hand is at work and how creative he was in forming His creation.

We now feel very well rested and have even got a bit of a sun tan - not bad for a 5 day trip.

To moo or not to moo, that is the question...

2008-12-14T12:22:00.004Z

Well, for the more observant amongst you, you will have noticed that it's been over a week since our last posting - apologies for this but we have been off on our hols, taking advantage of the Eid break.

Since our last posting the second Eid (Eid-ul-Fitr) has occurred and it took place on Tuesday 9th December.

This Eid is a much more sombre affair than the last Eid and basically involves the sacrifice of either a cow or goat (depending on your wealth) by each family. So, during the lead up to Eid, Dhaka became one big cattle market with massive temporary markets being set up around the city for people to buy and sell their choice sacrifice. Many trucks were entering the city stocked with cattle and it was a common site to see people walking their newly-purchased animal down the road to take back home.

The animals were all dressed very nicely with garlands of flowers round their necks blissfully ignorant of their fate.

Once purchased the animals were stored in the car port of apartment buildings, or attached to fences by the side of the road in front of buildings, or in peoples' apartments (if it's a goat that is - bit tricky to get a whole cow in the lift!)

Our building was no exception - we had a couple of cows and goats in the car port waiting to greet us one morning and some token pieces of hay for them to sleep in. During the lead up to Eid the guards would take the cattle for a little wander in the field opposite our building, so I'm pretty sure they enjoyed their last few days.

Along our road there were loads and loads of goats tied to railings and gates etc - our area is not as wealthy as other areas, hence the goats rather than cows - which was an interesting site to behold.

On Eid day the animals would be sacrificed either in the car ports, in peoples' apartments, or in one of the 12 designated sacrifice areas distributed across the city. There has been a recent ban on sacrificing on the road, due to the amount of mess is creates and hygiene implications and there are strict rules on cleaning up after the sacrifice. In the villages most people would sacrifice inside, or just outside their homes.

Once the sacrifice has occurred the meat is then divided into 3 - 1 portion is for the family, 1 portion is for the poor and 1 portion is for friends and other relatives. As you can imagine beef is on the menu for quite a while after that.

As we were on holiday at the time of Eid we missed the actual sacrificing but we understand it was quite eventful.

The Eid break was 3 days from the 8th - 10th Dec. The 8th is used to prepare for Eid. All the shopping should have been done the day before and then the 8th is simply used for preparation and then the day after Eid is for spending time with the family. Many people leave the city and return to their home village to spend time with their families, so Dhaka was pretty empty (well relatively).

On our last day in the office before Eid we had a pretty eventful day. One of our colleagues managed to drop the large fish bowl on his wrist (ouch). He severed an artery and a few tendons but thankfully he got to hospital in time to ensure that the damage wasn't too serious.

The whole hospital system is wierd here in that you kind of choose your hospital and go to that - it's not really a case of going to the nearest one and each hospital has it's own ambulance service.

We managed to get our colleague into a really nice private hospital and having been to visit him the following day I can confidently say that it puts our English hospitals to shame - the wards were very clean and quiet, plenty of staff on hand and the beds were nicely spread apart from adjacent beds. I suppose that's what you get when you pay privately.

Our colleague is now making a good recovery and should get full movement back in his fingers within the next few weeks.

Oh, in case you were wondering, Mr Bean and Mr Bond (the 2 fish) survived the initial breakage but sadly we arrived at the office this morning to find that Mr Bean had snuffed it - must have been a case of delayed shock!

Office Christmas Party

2008-12-06T05:33:00.002Z

Sorry this is the second post of the day but too much to write about in one posting. If you haven't had chance yet please check out the other post of today about our recent trip to Nilphamari.

So, we arrived back from Nilphamari early on Thursday after a good train journey. After another hour's kip it was back to the office for a bit of work and preparation for the Christmas party that evening.

After work we all got our glad rags on and headed to the party about 5 mins away. Most of the women, including me were in a Sari. My Sari came from the leprosy hospital that we saw in Nilphamari where they have a tailoring training centre for girls who have suffered with leprosy or disabilities. So I was privileged to meet the girls who made my Sari. Having never worn a Sari before there was no way I could put it on but thankfully our house helper came to the office to help dress me, which was very exciting. You will also see some pictures of the women at the Leprosy hospital, who had great fun dressing me up in the Sari at the shop.

In case you're wondering whether Andy missed out on the dressing up experience, he didn't! Our colleague brought a Punjab (three quarter length shirt thing) for Andy to wear.

At the party all our colleagues came with their families, together with our house helpers and their families. So, we got to meet our house helper's two daughters, who are 6 and 11, which was really special. They looked gorgeous and were so happy and smiley.

Andy was doing games with our colleague from Nilphamari. So, we played team pictionary, the kids played the chocolate game and then we all also played a team challenge game where the teams had to design some clothing out of scrap materials. It was so much fun, especially with the language issues - we had a great time!

We also had some great food and Mishti (sweets) of course - Mishti is compulsory at any form of celebration.

It was so special to spend an evening with all the house helpers and their families, with everyone being equal - an evening that we could all enjoy together without anyone having to serve anyone else (despite our house helpers desperate attempts to keep serving us). I think a great time was had by all, a real evening to remember.

On Friday, after the party we went to church in the afternoon, which was pretty sparse because it was the Sunday school picnic, so a lot of people were attending this but it was nice to spend some quality time with the few members that were there. The talk was really good, with lessons being taken from Jonah - a man who reluctantly followed God's calling to serve in a foreign land - very relevant lessons for us.

In the evening we attended a bring and share meal organised by the local International church, where we all went to different hosts' houses for a wonderful Christmas bring and share - YUMMM!!

We were spoilt with warm baguette, pizza and even apple crumble and custard (WOW!) Having not eaten any of these things for over 2 months, it was amazing but not sure our stomachs could coped - we were so full afterwards (well, you've got to take advantage whilst it's available!)

Oh, in case you're wondering we are still managing to enter into the Christmas spirit in Dhaka and have started to put up Christmas decorations and we have even got an advent calendar, which we are sharing with our househelper, who thinks it's wonderful.

Anyway, on that happy note we better be off - we're going to a Christmas carol service this afternoon, where we're due to hear a performance of The Messiah amongst other festive things. Should be good but feels very odd to be celebrating Christmas whilst it's 28 C outside!

Village people

2008-12-05T16:35:00.006Z

Hi folks,

Well we've just returned from an amazing few days up in the north of the country, in an area called Nilphamari, which is right up on the border with India. So, brace yourselves, this might be a long posting...

We travelled up to Nilphamari by night bus. That was an interesting experience, particularly since drivers round here are extremely "horn happy" and have no concept of driving in a straight line. The trip was made all the more exciting by the vomitting lady sitting behind us, who started puking out of the window as we approached the midway rest stop. Needless to say the night train back to Dhaka was far more preferable.

Anyway, the purpose of our trip was to see the site where our factory is going to be built and to meet some of the NGOs who are working up there. In order to get Fairtrade status we have to do community development work, so we were working to get an idea of the problems up there, what NGOs are currently doing and what work is required.

This particular area is the poorest area of Bangladesh and since Bangladesh is one of the poorest countries in the world you can imagine that the poverty was pretty severe. However, the poverty wasn't quite like in Dhaka - it wasn't quite so "in your face" (for want of a better phrase). Whilst people were extremely extremely poor they were very humble with it. They all worked so so hard tending to the fields, or pulling rickshaws, or basically anything that would enable them to eat. There were no beggars or people on the streets asking for money as there are in Dhaka.

We were staying in the residential area of the EPZ - our organisation has a flat there where our colleague lives for part of the week and the flat also serves as an office. It was a bit like living on an army compound because to enter the EPZ area you have to go through large gates guarded by security men and then once inside the people who live in the residential area are the officers or investors of the EPZ companies. It's a really nice little community actually. Every evening we we played Badminton with some of the officers (well I didn't because not really the done thing for ladies plus a bit tricky wearing a Salwa Kamiz), which was really good and great for meeting people.

During the daytime we had lots of meetings with various NGOs, which was really beneficial. We hired a driver and drove all over the Nilphamari area. The driving was a bit hairy at times but I'm pleased to say we only knocked down one cyclist and fortunately he only required some minor patching up.

At all the meetings we were given tea and snacks, so as you can imagine after our 4th meeting of the day we were pretty full of food but everybody was so hospitable that we couldn't refuse. Some of the places we visited were very primitive and we were a bit concerned for our tender Bideshi stomachs but God really strengthened our stomachs whilst we were there and we didn't get ill at all.

We had the privilege of seeing a farming project, a local village, a couple of community working groups, a drama/music performance that is used to raise awareness about domestic violence, a leprosy/disability hospital as well as lots of bamboo (it's where our raw material is sourced from), rice fields and vegetable fields amongst many other things.

One of the most surreal experiences was travelling to the train station at the end of our stay. We left the flat at about 8pm when it was pitch black, with our luggage, our colleague and the cook from the flat. Our form of transport was a rickshaw van, which is basically a bike with a flat trailer behind it (see the photos for an example), so we all sat on this with all our luggage and travelled for an hour in the pitch black to the next town. As we sat on the bike along the main road with buses and lorries tootling past and obviously no form of lighting we thought how far removed we were from England.

The best way I can describe what it was like up there is if you imagine stepping into a time machine and transporting yourself back a couple of centuries in England. For example the farm tools were yoke + oxen rather than tractors and trailors. The homes were all bamboo huts with little or no form of sanitation and all the shops were little road side tin huts with no shop front. The main form of transport was rickshaw van, bikes or rickety old bus. It was quite common to see men being shaved with the old style flat razor, or kids playing with a tyre and stick by the side of the road and groups of people huddled round the one small black and white TV in the town.

When I mentioned the poverty earlier the problems are so complex it would take ages to explain but basically the root cause is lack of jobs. All these people need is some permanent employment to give them some hope. The poverty and the need is absolutely desparate. To give you one example of the kind of choices these people have to make, some families have to choose whether to starve, or whether to sell one of their children to a trafficker in the vain hope that their child will earn a better living in Dhaka, or in India but deep down knowing that they will probably end up in prostitution or the like. These are the kinds of choices that we in the West can't even begin to comprehend.

I'm not sure I've given you a very good picture of what it was like up there, it's very hard to begin to describe it but it was a huge privilege for us to experience it. It was so quiet and peaceful and full of love and tranquility even amongst all this poverty. Despite having to face some very hard decisions the people we met were so full of servitude and love; the light of God was truly shining in this pocket of tranquility even in the darkness of such poverty.

As we were visiting this place the following verse came to mind, which I wanted to share with you:

"The Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor...the bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes...they will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendour" (Isaiah 61)

May you all be blessed xx

Wonderland and the Dancing bear....

2008-11-29T05:44:00.003Z

Last Saturday Nicola and I did some child minding for so me of our colleagues and took them to a 'Theme Park' tyype place called wonderland. It was a very bizzare experience. A small park with no-one there filled with lots of fairground rides. All in different states of disrepair. We were stopped from going on some of them as more people were needed to balance them out?! Others weren't running becuase the operator was having his lunch on the back of them.

Nicola went on one odd ride which consited of a train going round a large circular peice of track that was half enclosed by a building. The first trip round everything was dark and came past the station waving at me and one of the children in a 'waws that it' kind of expression.

However the train continued back into the building, this time with the lights on, to show a prehistoric scene with badly made dinosaurs and cavemen models. The train then stopped inside this room and Nicola and the child were ushered off the train into another cave like room. The door was shut behind the two of them, leaving them in the dark. Then all of a sudden they were engulfed in disco music and flashing lights and the strange appearance of a Bengali man dressed in a cuddly bear costume. He then proceeded to spend the next 3 minutes dancing with the bear in the middle of the cave with flashing lights and disco music blaring out.

Finally they waved goodbye and were seated back on the train for the trip back to the station. A truly odd experience but the child we were looking after enjoyed it so much we all had to have a go and take a dance with the disco bear.

It was a weird experience to dance with a Bengali man dressed as a bear in a cave... with my wife and two children.

The same day we also took a trip to Pizza Hut! (Yum Yum!!) and the international club which was really nice with a good size swimming pool and basketball court! So nice to have some normality!

Fondue and Bangla

2008-11-22T03:08:00.002Z

Well this is the next instalment of my blogposting just to let you know about my week.

So it's been a pretty busy week with having my Bangla exam on Thursday, putting the finishing touches on the Fondue parties, attending 2 fondue parties and going to an anti-trafficking workshop.

I'm not sure whether I've properly explained the significance of the chocolate fondue parties in my previous blogs but just in case I thought I would briefly summarise it now. Essentially during the last week of November Stop the Traffik are trying to raise awareness aboout trafficking in the chocolate industry. Nearly half the world's chocolate is made from cocoa grown in the Cote d'Ivoire in Africa. Over 12,000 children have been trafficked into these cocoa farms. The conditions they have they have to work in is appalling.

The Stop the Traffik website tells the story of a young boy who was trafficked from his home village in Mali to one of these cocoa farms. He was locked up in a shack at night with other boys where they would have to sleep amongst there own excrement with no light or ventilation in the shack. During the day he would work 12 - 14 hours lugging heavy sacks of cocoa. If he dropped one he would get beaten, if he asked for more food he would get beaten. This particular boy witnessed one boy die from overwork and too many beatings and this apparently is not an uncommon scenario. So, unless chocolate comes with the fairtrade mark, the likelihood is it will contain the blood of trafficked children.

The fondue parties are to raise awareness on a consumer level about trafficking in the chocolate industry in order to encourage everyone to eat fair trade (traffik free) chocolate. On a larger level the campaign is also to encourage the large chocolate companies to stop using trafficked cocoa in their chocolate and to demand traffik free cocoa from their suppliers.

Our first chocolate fondue in Dhaka happened on Wednesdnay night at a home mission group. We watched a really insightful DVD on the garment industry in Bangladesh, which we plan on brining back to the UK because it was so interesting and we discussed the trafficking issue whilst of course tucking into lovley chocolate fondue.

The next fondue was last night at the British ex pat club. The club had organised a bbq by the pool with loads of fairy lights round the place, a wonderful jazz band and chocolate fondues on all tables for the participants. It was a great night. I had loads of good conversations with people about trafficking, so hopefully there's a few more Fair Trade converts out there (although unfortunately not so freely available over here).

I would really encourage all of you to invite a few friends over and have a fondue. There's an organisers pack on the Stop the Traffik website and loads of resources to go with it. Even if you can't manage a fondue party you could make the decision not to eat chocolate unless it's fair trade.

Anyway, next week I'm doing a school assembly about trafficking, there's 3 more home groups having a fondue and I'm doing a youth group, so all in all a pretty busy week. I've also got a 2 day conference about tackling human trafficking in Dhaka, which should be really interesting because it basically involves everyone working on human trafficking at all levels, from government ministers to tiny little grass roots volunteers like me.

Also this week I had my Bangla exam on Thursday. I think it went ok and very glad it's over - just need to keep practicing what I've learned.

Andy's had a pretty good week in the workshop, designing, sanding and of course singing. I learned row, row row your boat at Bangla school the other day, so we were able to have a good sing along in the workshop.

Think that about covers it. Sorry for another long waffley blog. I'll try and write a bit more regularly now to reduce the length of these postings.

Women's Conference

2008-11-21T04:26:00.002Z

Hi all

As predicted my blogging has become a bit slack these past couple of weeks - many apologies. Anyway, due to my lack of blogs I now have lots to tell you, so thought I would put it in two separate posts.

As you will have read I went to a Women's Conference last weekend up in Shava, which is a lovely little village about 1.5 hours north of Dhaka. All the ladies from work went, so they were keen for me to join them, particularly because it was a good opportunity for me to build new contacts with other volunteers and especially those involved in anti-trafficking.

So, about 70 women left Dhaka on Thursday 13th November and travelled by coach to Shavar. I have to admit it was lovely to get out of thte city. Although we love being in Dhaka we have missed seeing some fields and greenery - concrete can become a bit monotonous after a while.

On route we passed the Bangladesh equivalent to Disney World, namely Fantasy Kingdom. It had a really good water park and quite a lot of rides but if you're trying to imagine what it's like, think more Skegness than Orlando.

The retreat centre was in a typical Bangladesh village, where all the shops are sort of huts with tin roofs, rather than buildings, the road is a rather bumpy mud/concrete track and the men sit in these open air kind of cafes sipping tea and watching the world go by. As you can imagine, 3 bus loads of white women turning up was quite an event for that sleepy little village.

The retreat centre was beautiful, very peaceful with lovely grounds and overlooked another water park (unfortunately I ran out of time to go but if I had have gone I would have had to wear my full Shalwa Kamiz; the 3 piece you may have seen me wear in the pictures).

As the retreat was predominantly Western women we were allowed to wear conservative Western dress, which I thought would be wonderful but actually when it came to it, it felt a bit odd and most of us ending up reverting back to the 3 piece.

At the retreat there was a mixture of worship, study, prayers, relaxation and lots of eating. The studies and some of the reflection/prayer time was led by a lady called Jackie Pullenger, who some of you may have heard of. She wrote "Chasing the Dragon" and has spent the past 42 years working in the Walled City in Hong Kong, predominantly with drug addicts but also with other vullnerable members of society. She was very inspirational and very relevant to the context we're in over here. She talking a lot about working with very vulnerable people and reaching out to them.

There was lots she said; far too much for me to recount in one blog spot but perhaps the main thing I have taken from the weekend is this: to see people and help the ones you see.

When you're surrounded by so much poverty it's easy to let a lot of it pass you by. We were encouraged, when someone really suffering comes up to you, or you see them as you pass by, not to walk by but to do an act of kindness to that person, whether it is simply looking them in the eye and noticing that they are there (making them feel valued), holding their hand, praying for them or giving them some food. We were also encouraged by how wonderfully Jesus enacted this in his own life.

I was hugely inspired by this, having been a bit overwhelmed by how much poverty and need there is over here and what we can possibly do to help but when you realise that it can be so simple as doing an act of kindness to the one you see, it makes the task seem a bit more manageable.

Earlier I mentioned all the wonderful food we ate. Besides our 3 Bengali meals provided by the centre we also had 3 tea breaks each day. We were wonderfully blessed to have lots of baked goods supplied by some of the women on the retreat and also lots of other lovely things provided by some women in America, such as flavoured teas, hot chocolate sachets, spiced apple sachets, scented candles (ummmm.....).

On Friday I took a walk into the village with 4 other women on the retreat. That was very exciting and we caused quite a stir - I think it was eventful enough having 5 Bideshi women walking through the women, particularly when one was a camera-happy loud Australian. They all loved having their photos taken and as soon as the cameras came out the locals insisted on having more photos taken. I'll put some on the blog for you to look at.

Anyway, I think I've probably gone on long enough.

I would encourage you all today to try and find one random act of kindness to do - even if it's just noticing someone you would normally pass by and please post any comments of the effects of these acts of kindness, or email.

Lots of love as always Nic x

'Houston, I think we have routine...'

2008-11-14T12:15:00.004Z

Hi Everyone, hope you're all feeling well!?

It seems like we've really settled into a routine this week, which was kind of nice! Nicola's been continuing language each morning. Leaving Andy to actually practise some language with Halima (our home helper) each morning before he clears off to work.

We've both been working really hard this week. Andy's been finishing off products so they can be taken back to the UK for a bit of market and possible client feedback. Nicola has been organising Chocolate Fondue parties throughout Dhaka and getting to grips with what it takes to register a company for Fair Trade status.

On Wednesday night on the way home we saw a cow weeing across a lane of a dual carriageway in the middle of Dhaka city - no one seemed to care or own the animal, everyone was happy for it to do its business in the middle of the road.....some things are still a bit odd!!

Today (Friday) Andy gave his first Bible Study for the ecclesia which seemed to go ok. He's now preparing for his exhortation next week. It was a fun experience to speak with a translator and try to draw diagrams of how Jesus' mediation works on a whiteboard and act out scenes of confusion that he's had with Rickshaw drivers (all relevant stuff I promise!).

Nic's been away at a women's conference so I'll let her fill you in on that in a mid-week post..

Today I travelled home form the ecclesia with a brother who told me his story about how he became a Christadelphian which was recently interesting. He also showed me some of the cards he makes for sale. He's a a really good artist and helps train women basic craft skills to produce the cards. There may well be some winging their way back to the UK for you guys to buy! They really are amazing and really good designs with a variety of media.

There have been a few observations which I've picked up this week that I've wanted to tell you.

1) over 50% of the population of Bangladesh live below the poverty line, on less than a dollar a day - about 68p.
2) Russia has a slightly smaller population than Bangladesh but as a country is about 120 times bigger!!
3) there is a real shortage of jobs here - Farming is the main source of employment but Bangladesh is the third greatest garment exporter after China and Korea employing 3 million workers.
4) It is not unusual here to see people living in the central reservations of roads or on some pavements. Many, many people sleep out in the open each night with no protection.
5) In a typical slum 6 families can share one toilet - a typical family numbers about 8 people.

I don't tell you these things with any hidden agenda or to make you feel bad or guilty. They are just facts or things we have seen, and part of life in Bangladesh - things which i seemed to have pondered more this week than before.

Anywhoo, its been nice to write to you all! God bless, take care and send us an email sometime! Would be good to hear from you!

Love

Andy and Nic

Visit to the Zoo

2008-11-07T15:23:00.003Z

**Video Update - see left **

Well it's been a very exciting day here in Dhaka but before I get into that let me briefly update you about the past few days.

So, nothing much to say about Wednesday, apart from another yummy team lunch. However, yesterday was a sort of "interesting day", where we really developed a love-hate relationship with the city. When we left language at about 10.15 and hopped in a CNG to go to the office for our usual 30 min trip across the city, little did we know that this 30 min trip would turn into a 2 hour trip!!!! And why I hear you cry? All because a political leader, Sheikh Hasina (female), formerly arrested for corruption charges, had returned from the UK a free woman, having received much needed medical attention.

There were people all out on the street welcoming her back and whenever political leaders move round the city they tend to close the roads that they're going to be travelling on. So, as our main road to Mirpur is also the road with the parliament buildings on that was inevitably closed whilst Sheikh Hasina arrived and therefore caused us to be stuck in a massive jam for the majority of our journey - not ideal! Oh well, we made it in the end.

There's a quick route from language to the office, through the Cantonement (army and government officials' area) but we're not allowed to go that way cause we're Bodeshi's. Only Bangladeshis can travel through - very frustrating!

Anyway, after such an ordeal we decided to reward ourself with a drink and snacks at the womens' restaurant round the corner on the way back from work, which was really nice.

So, today we went to the Dhaka zoo (zoo = Chiriyakana) with one of the lads from the workshop, who was dying to take us. It wasn't quite like a British zoo, not least because we were more of an attraction than the animals. Unfortuately many of the animals weren't very well kept and the environment wasn't as good as in the UK but it was a great experience going with our colleague and I think he enjoyed taking the Bodeshi's round, particularly since so many people came up to him and asked about us. A really good opportunity for us to practice our Bangla as well.

After that we went to church and managed to catch the end of the Bible Study, which was useful given that Andy has to give one next Friday. Then we shared lunch with them and stayed for the memorial service, after which we escaped to the Bagha (ex pat) club to meet some friends.

At church there were 2 older Australian couples, who are returning home on Wednesday. One of the men was speaking, which was great cause we could actually follow the service for a change. There was also a couple of younger Australian girls, one of whom had just got engaged to an young Bengali chap from the church, which meant Mishti (Indian sweet) all round - yum!

We always feel encouraged going to the church just to see the passion they all have for the scriptures and how warm and loving they all are. Many of them have invited us round for meals and have been so so welcoming. In fact living over here has really given us a greater understanding of the scriptures cause the culture is a lot more akin to the culture of the bible. Obviously we have a lot more to understand but we feel that even though we've only been here a month we've learnt so much about the people and the culture - it's great!

I'm pleased to say that Bangla's going reasonably well and even better the teacher seems to have stopped giving us homework (although I probably shouldn't speak too soon!). Andy's dropping Bangla now cause he's pretty busy at work, so can't really spare the time to be at lessons but I'm going to continue for another 2 weeks.

We've started sharing lifts to Bangla with another couple and the other day since we couldn't get a taxi we ended up getting a CNG, which normally only holds 3 people max but as there were 4 of us Andy got to ride up front with the driver - quite an experience; the driver thought it was hilarious! Unfortunately no video evidence but next time it happens we'll have the camera at the ready. Travelling in this form is not unusual for Bangladeshis. We've seen 4 adults on 1 motorbike, hoards of people packed into 1 CNG and similar with the taxis. As you can imagine health and safety means a lot less over here than in the UK.

I know I've waffled on for long enough but I must just share this before I go. At the start of Bangla every morning they have a short devotional, during which we sing a hymn in Bangla - normally a pretty cringeworthy experience give that the Bangladeshi's are not particularly known for their singing, particularly unaccompanied. Anyway, the other morning we sang "As the Deer Pants by the Water"! - who'd have thought (for those of you who aren't familiar with this song, it's a bit of a classic back home).

So, I think that about ends the entry for today. Just to let you know that we're both fighting fit and Andy's currently strumming away on his guitar next door, so he's a happy bunny at the moment.

Hope all's well over there and the Bonfire Night events went well.

Lots of love

x

A Week Later (sorry...)

2008-11-04T15:12:00.002Z

Hello again to all you avid blog-watchers. We’re really sorry it’s taken so long to write another entry but we’ve had a pretty busy week this week, especially with having to get up early for our language classes and then having to do homework when we get home after work. Anyway, we have been let off homework tonight, so I thought I’d use the opportunity to update the blog.

I guess the first thing to tell you is that we went for dinner on Thursday night with a work colleague, who is a local designer that Andy has been working with and his wife joined us. Andy and our colleague picked up our colleague’s wife after work. Andy had a browse round the after school club that our colleague’s wife runs and then they took him to a couple of nice cafes. After which they came and picked me up after a meeting I had on the other side of town. Then me and our colleague’s wife went for a coffee whilst the boys went handbag shopping (birthday present for our colleague’s wife), then we went for a really nice meal.

On Friday we had a morning in catching up and doing a bit of homework and then went to church in the afternoon. After church we went to an International Night at the ex-patriot church a bit further away. The English team performed a skit involving bus stops and barn dancing – most amusing but not nearly as amusing as the Finland effort.

On Saturday we went to our local shopping area on Road 27 where Andy bought a guitar and we found a great supermarket with nice met and quite a lot of Bodeshi food – they even stock peanut butter (shame neither of us like it)! After our exhausting shopping trip in the heat we went for a drink in a really nice, cool art café that Andy had been introduced to the night before by our work colleague.

One of the amusing things about this country is the ATM experience. When you want to get cash out you have to find an ATM, which aren’t as common as in the UK. There’s normally a queue of people waiting outside, the ATM is inside a lovely air-conditioned booth and there’s a guard on the door. So the ATM experience is one of our lovely air-conditioning hot spots (you tend to jump between these AC hotspots when you find out where they are)

In the evening we then went to babysit for the children of a couple who go to our home group and who live round the corner. We were very privileged to have Moussaka and banana cake for our efforts – yummmm!

On Sunday back to another early start at language and unfortunately Andy got ill again, so didn’t make it in to language (although he wasn’t too sorry). I had to brave the CNGs all by myself and despite getting horribly lost I survived with my pigeon Bangla.

Monday was the usual work and home group in the evening and then today was much the same.

We’re both making good progress on our projects. I’m busy co-ordinating chocolate fondue parties across the city to raise awareness of human trafficking on the back of the Stop the Traffik campaign. For those who might be interested in hosting a chocolate fondue party, or want more information about the trafficking issue, I recommend you look at the website: http://www.stopthetraffik.org/getinvolved/act/chocolate Once you start to look more deeply at the problem I'm sure you'll be as moved as I have been. It brings a tear to my eye every time I think of children being bought and sold, never sure whether they will ever see their families again and kept in conditions of sheer slavery - this issue certainly needs a lot of prayers.

Anyway, before I start rambling too much about such injustices as human traffiking I better sign off for now and hopefully we'll do another update a bit sooner.

Thanks as always for all your lovely comments - we do love to read them, so keep posting away, or emailing us.

Lots of love (as always)

All better again

2008-10-28T14:14:00.002Z

Well, I think I can pretty safely say that both of us are now in good health, so we're relishing life in Bangladesh.

For those of you interested in the tummy diaries, my tummy has just about made a full recovery as of today but I was back up and running (with a small amount of discomfort) from Friday onwards.

Well who'd have thought that 3 weeks in and we still have more exciting news to report.

On Saturday began the side effects of Cyclone Remish, which hit the Bay of Bengal. The side effects weren't too devastating for us but there was a lot of rain, wind and the temperature dropped significantly. In fact we haven't run any of our fans since Saturday and have had to put a blanket over us in bed! It was pretty horrific at times, particularly travelling by rickshaw and CNG in the pouring rain - not particularly pleasant! One of the main problems with coping with the heavy rain over here is the poor drainage - water seems to just collect, which is pretty bad for the poor rickshaw wallers, especially since they can't see all the pot holes in the road.

On Saturday evening we went to a discussion group at one of our colleague's flats, where the Oasis visitor was speaking on being an integrated church, in particular how the church can integrate with its community and other faiths, whilst remaining true to its identity - very interesting stuff and left us brimming with ideas.

On Sunday we spent the day in the office, listening to the roaring winds and pouring rain (and doing some work of course). We have started having lunch with the "locals" in the office, which has been great - they're such a fab bunch, it's been really good getting to know them better. Andy's even managed to get an invite to the zoo with one of the workshop lads and our design colleague has managed to get tickets for him, his wife and us to go to the cricket (not sure when though).

On Monday we started our Bangla lessons. Unfortunately the language school is over the other side of town, so it means getting up at 6am and leaving the house at 7am in order to get there for 8am (it doesn't take an hour to get there but catching a CNG can be unpredictible). The lessons start with everyone in the language school sitting down together at 8 for a hymn (in Bangla), short thought by one of the students and a prayer - it's amazing that God really is in every aspect of our life in Bangladesh!

There are 10 people in our class, which is a 1 mth beginner's Phonetics course - survival Bangla! It's actually a lot of people to have in a group and the class room is tiny but we'll cope. The style of learning is not ideal for me - they tend to teach by repitition, so it means a lot of study when we get home after work to digest it all. There course is pretty intense, there's a lot packed in but so far we're enjoying it. Just need to start putting it into practice.

After language we went to work - another good day in the office! In the evening we went to the home group at our colleague's round the corner. A really lovely evening where we were able to connect with God and continue to grow the relationship with some of the foreigners (Bodeshis) in our area. Plus, one of the girls, who actually lives in the building next to ours brought chocolate cake for the second week running - yum!

We've discovered that there's a "Bodeshi" cook book, which is a cook book especially for foreigners. It's written in English and Bangla, it contains a lot of Western recipes and the recipes only include ingredients that are easily available over here. Most foreigners seem to have a copy. When they get a craving for a chocolate cake, or a Western meal they will tend to give the recipe book to their cook to make the meal. Unfortunately, our domestic helper doesn't read Bangla, so we're stuck with Bangladeshi food, until we can teach her something Western.

Today we had language again in the morning then back to the office. There was a bit of excitement in the office cause there was a film crew around filming at the school in Duaripara and then doing interviews at the office with some of the teachers at the school. One of our donors is making a DVD of some of the work going on in Bangladesh to show in churches back in the UK. So, given that our office is already cramped when everyone's it, it was chaos for a couple of hours with so many extra bodies floating around. Anyway, anything to raise the profile of the school and highlight the much needed funding is always welcome.

The school is currently looking for alternative premises, cause it's far too cramped, dark and dingy in there, so please remember the project in your prayers and pray that we find a new suitable building and that we have sufficient funding in place to afford it.

After work it was back home for some more language studying and to do our homework.

The cyclone left yesterday, so it's been a perfect day today - still relatively cool after the cyclone (by which I mean still t-shirt weather but pleasant, rather than overwhelming) but beautiful blue sky. I'm so glad we can go pack to tolerating the cold shower in the morning, rather than dreading the thought of it...

Hope all's well in England.

We'll update you soon

lots of love (as always)

Nicola's Turn.....

2008-10-24T16:52:00.002+01:00

Hey everyone, hope your all ok? Thanks for your comments on our blog postings! Its nice to hear from you...

You'll be pleased to know that Andy's health has returned but Nicola has been discovering some of the harsh realities of Bangladesh!

She came down with some belly problems of her own and managed to go one better than Andy by doing a bit of sick too. She was pretty ill on Wednesday so didn't go to work and had Andy home by lunchtime to look after her. The major concern was making sure she kept hydrated. Fortunately a book we had (kindly given to us by the medic in our family) mentioned the idea of drinking in sips rather than gulps. This method seemed to help her and she stopped being sick in the afternoon but continued to be unwell till lunchtime on Thursday!

So now we know to sip our drinks when we're ill and to use the Saline hydration packs that are easily available here or add some salt to a glass of flat coke or lemonade (Nicola's preferred treatment).

So Nicola has been out of action for the past few days. Andy has been working hard in the office trying to create some Bamboo products and learning some basic hand skills for shaping the wood - most involving using a big machete type knife (pictures to follow soon!!). We're working on some tray and towel rack designs at the moment. Its great fun working with and learning skills and language from the locals in the office.

Today (Friday) we helped to entertain a guy who's visiting Bangladesh for 36 hrs. He's here visiting Oasis and works for a Christian movement in the UK called 'Faithworks' (a movement designed to help churches interact and serve their communities). We had lunch with him at the Bagha club (western food available - yippee!!) before hearing him speak at the International Church.

Afterwards we all went out for a meal in a really nice Indian Restaurant which was very tasty and hopefully not too difficult for our tender English stomachs to cope with!

Tomorrow we're off to practice the British Skit for an international evening we're attending. We're waiting at Bus Stops and Barn Dancing to show a typical British lifestyle! (guess who's calling!!)

TTFN
Andy and Nic x

Bangla, Bazaars and Bible Study

2008-10-21T13:25:00.002+01:00

Well we thought we'd reduce our blog writing to every few days since we assumed that things would start to get more familiar but actually I think more exciting things have happened in the past 3 days than the whole time we're here.

So, on Sunday we had our first Bangla lesson at the office by the head of the language school. She also gave us a bit of the lo-down on the history of Bangladesh and some cultural pointers. We start our Bangla lessons properly next week.

We also learnt a bit more about this history and ethos of Oasis and their international work - very inspiring.

Oh yeah you'll be pleased to know that our AC is now mended (ah...bliss). Our lovely landlord sent someone round to install a hose, so it no longer leaks on to one of the flats below us. We went to apologise to the neighbour that had suffered our AC and turns out they were super nice, invited us in for a drink and spoke perfect English (having spent some years in the US) - what a blessing!

Just as another aside, thought I'd give you a running account of Andy's Delhi Belly. He came down with his 2nd spate on Saturday afternoon and just about recovered by Sunday morning. Trying to cut out dairy to see if that works (think I might need to start a separate blog to monitor the progress...there's more to come (see below)..)

Monday we finally managed to get some drawers, computer desk and wardrobe but it did take all day to do. It's not like the UK where you can just take a trip to your nearest Ikea; it's a case of visiting several shops, bartering, waiting for it all to be processed and delivered - mammoth job.

During our shopping trip we discovered a very large Western style shopping mall with 8 floors - not what we were expecting to find in Bangladesh. The only drawback to this mall was when we were in a music shop looking at guitars Andy looked at me with a smirk. When questioned he told me he'd fill me in later. Turns out a mouse had been running round my ankles - eek!!

In the afternoon we went to New Market, which is a massive market (oddly enough!) Really exciting place and dead cheap. We also took our first bus trip to get there - not so exciting! It was swealtering hot, crowded and we got stuck in a traffic jam on the hot sticky bus for about 45 mins. Think we'll stick to CNG's!

Today we visited the Oasis Duaripara project, which is a school (which also provides health + family care) for girls living in a slum near our office. It was an amazing experience. The classrooms are small, dark, hot and dingy with hardly any resources but the smiles on the girls' faces lit the place up. They were so pleased to see us and to practice their English on us. One of the classes even performed a drama for us - very amusing.

The sad part of it all is that the teachers are working so hard to convince the parents that the girls should be coming to school, rather than going to work in the garment factories (or other such undesirable jobs), where they can expect to earn 800 tk a month (approx £7) working 6 days a week, 12 - 14 hrs a day. When they reach the age of 14 (sometimes less) the parents don't want to keep their girls in education and need them to work. Unfortunately the severe poverty over heremeans that work comes befor education, so the teachers at Duaripara are working hard at educating the parents where possible and trying to show them that by giving the girls an education it provides choices, so they won't be forced to enter into exploitative labour. I can't even begin to go into the other problems facing these girls and their families which affects their decisions and situations and means they end up in exploitative labout (I should also mention that not all garment factories are bad - some provide decent wages and working conditions but the families these girls come from tend to be in the worst factories)

Seeing the enthusiasm and joy on the girls' faces was extremely humbling and if you thought about it too hard it would reduce you to tears. These girls and their families need lots of love and lots of prayers.

Anyway, just to continue with the Andy Delhi-Belly update, he came down with his 3rd spate this morning and after several glasses of saline and coke he is now sleeping it off....

So, here ends the report for the past few days.

Oh yeah, just before I sign off it has been suggested that these posts are a bit long and waffley (sorry about that), so if you would rather see shorter posts let me know and I'll try and be a bit more succinct (although not particularly my strong point as you may know...)!

Our Fri, Sat weekend

2008-10-18T14:43:00.007+01:00

Hi all, Just a quick posting to say we've had a great weekend!

Friday we had to stay in in the morning because the men were coming to fit our Air Conditioning (much needed as its been soo hot!). In the afternoon we went to meet with the Christadelphians. There were about 18 people in the service and it was led in Bangla.

Everyone was really friendly and most spoke good english.

Today (Saturday), Jo took us to a local shopping area called road 27. We found some good book shops with english books and even a place I could buy a guitar from (lucky Nicola ;) We stopped for lunch at a Pizza hut type place which was really yummy!

Getting a lot more used to the Rickshaws now and they;re great fun for moving around in (although a bit scary and warm at times!) Traffic is always bad but kind of works. Generally if theres a gap in the road some type of transportation will be filling it shortly. It's everyman for himself and everyone seems to have right of way! Look at our 2 new videos (on left) for more of an idea!

Anyway, the postings may get a bit less frequent as things start to become more 'normal' to us but hopefully we'll take it in turns to update every few days.

Its kin dof odd but we're both really looking forward to going to work tomorrow....

Over and Out!!

End of the Week

2008-10-17T06:22:00.004+01:00

After my previously waffley email I thought I'd briefly let you know what we've been doing this week since Tuesday.

On Tuesday we bought quite a lot of our home furnishings for our flat, which has made it look a lot more homely. Although still no wardrobe (ARRR!)

It was the intention that Andy would go on a boys road trip to the bamboo plantation / factory site in the north of the country. However, the inevitable Delhi Belly finally struck at completely the wrong time, so at the last minute Andy had to pull out (much to his disappointment).

On Wednesday Andy stayed at home waiting for the internet people to come and nursing himselft back to health. I went into the office for the day. We were a bit later into the office as we had to drop our furniture off and Andy.

At lunchtime we had a team lunch, which they do every week and which was really nice authentic Bangladeshi food. Apparently the way to eat Bangaldeshi food is to have loads of rice on your plate and then you put a bit of the first curry dish on your plate. You eat that with some of the rice then move on to the next dish, which you eat with a bit more of the rice. There was then a final dish, whcih was more like a sauce and you use that to eat the rest of your rice (all eaten with fingers of course). There was also a plate of chillis and limes. Apparently you're supposed to squeeze the lime over your food, eat half the chilli and dab the remaining half in the rice to flavour it. I decided to save that for another week, despite the best efforts of the boys in the office.

In the afternoon one of the lovely people in the office took me to try and buy AC. We went to 3 shops, which was an exciting experience. The process of deciding on a unit and buying it took ages and I was definately a tourist attraction in the shop (being white and female). The manager of the shop is also an English teacher, so speaks pretty good English, which was nice. He told me that he was a Freedom fighter in the 1971 war (the Bangladeshi people are very proud of their origin and success in the war) and gave me a cup of tea, which was lovely. All the staff were very attentive and were keen to make sure that I always had a seat.

On Thursday we caught a CNG into the office with Jo (who lives round the corner). The traffic was really bad, although I'm told that's normal. We spent the morning in the office. I was mainly doing reading and meeting with the boss to plan the next few weeks. Andy was very excited to be let loose on some bamboo and tools and get involved in making candle holders with the workshop lads and his design colleague.

In the afternoon we went back to our flat to have our bedroom measured to see which AC unit would be best. We then went to the AC shop to buy it, which again was quite a long process. Having bought the Unit we went back to the flat and one of the shop staff took the unit on the back of a bike back for us and then loaded it on to the lift. The strange thing here is that they seem to employ a lot of people to do a job that 1 or 2 people could do but it's great to be able to give jobs to people and I think it comes down to them all being so attentive and wanting to work and help.

After that we went to buy a microwave and toaster and then we were left to our own devices. So, we went to the nearby market, which was very exciting. Full of fruit, veg, sacks of rice, spices, haberdashery, fish. The smell in places was revolting but the atmosphere was amazing and once again we were the star tourist attraction. We tried our first bit of bartering with relatively little success. Each place we went into seemed unwilling to barter but we were happy that we got a pretty good deal (although probably not as good as a local would have got).

After our adventure and having taken all our stuff back to the flat on a rickshaw we rewarded ourselves with a drink at a local cafe place. This place is wonderful; it's on the 4th floor of a building and is a women's restaurant but men are allowed in if accompanied by a woman. You sit on the floor on cushions and eat / drink at a low table. So, we sampled some lassi which was really refreshing and very cheap. Definately somewhere we'll visit again.

After that we returned home and ate our lovely Bangla meal that had been cooked by our domestic helper (yummm!)

Snapshot of 11.00am in our Flat

2008-10-17T05:50:00.004+01:00

Well we've come to the end of our first week here and we're sitting in our flat reflecting on the week we've just had whilst waiting for the AC guy to come and install the AC (only 1 hour late, so that's pretty good going).

I thought I'd give you a detailed insight into what we're experiencing at this very moment. So, we're sat in our lounge, which is quite small and at the moment we've got in it 2 chairs, a sofa, coffee table and lamp - all made of cane. I'm looking out on to our balcony, which is also quite small but useful for hanging washing out on. There are a few items of washing on the line over our balcony, blowing gently in the breeze and which I haven't bothered to move into the ironing pile yet.

Beyond the balcony about 6 ft away there is the roof of another building with an enormous satellite dish on it. There's a few palm trees that we can see the tops of and then more apartment buildings in every direction. Although there are buildings everywhere we are actually quite lucky to have a bit of a view.

It's quite peaceful here, apart from the constant whirring of the fan. There is the occasional sound of a drill (someone's having some work done to an apartment near by) and I can hear a man shouting in the distance, which I assume is something to do with the nearby Mosque.

There is a lovely aroma of someone cooking nearby. It's not quite the same as the smell of Indian cooking you experience in the UK, which sometimes can be a bit overbearing, this is very pleasant; not too spciy but very definately authentic Bangla cooking. You can quite often smell food being cooked at all times of the day. Food preparation and cooking takes a lot longer than in the UK - no such thing as quick convenience food and savoury meals can be eaten at any meal time.

The sun is shining and the sky is a beautiful hazy blue. I'm not sure what the temperature is but it's definately warm - especially on the 5th floor of the building! The fans and gently breeze are keeping us relatively cool but it does require a lot of effort to do anything in this heat (hence a much slower pace of life and why it takes ages to get anything done).

We've got a massive pan of water boiling in the kitchen, which we've got to transfer to the filter once it has cooled, so it's a bit like a sauna in there.

Anyway, the plan for today is to hop into a CNG and head to church this afternoon (if the AC people every arrive), which is over the other side of town. The main service is in the afternoon at 2.30pm. There are quite a number of different churches in Dhaka to accommodate the missionaries and expats and the times of the services all tend to vary.

On refelction this seems like a bit of a waffley email and I don't seem to have told you very much. Oh well, I'll put it on another post.

Hope life in the UK's ticking along alright. Please feel free to email us and let us know your news.

x

Some pictures

2008-10-15T13:43:00.002+01:00

Nic on her birthday and our first Rickshaw Ride

One of the rivers (left) and the view from our lounge balcony (right)

MONDAY: Another Dinner Invitation

2008-10-14T11:40:00.002+01:00

At work Andy and I got introduced the projects a bit more - it's all very exciting and there seems like there's loads to do fairly quickly. At the moment we've both got a lot of reading to do to get ourselves up to speed with where the business is up to and the community projects. Lots of research has been done in Bangladesh for both things, which we very quickly need to digest.

Anyway, it has got us very excited about the forthcoming few months.

In the afternoon Nicola went back to the flat to sort out the internet. Unfortunately there was a power cut whilst they were trying to connect (a frequent occurance, as we are now learning), so the process seemed to take ages. Andy stayed at the office to finish off his briefing.

In the evening we were invited to Ken and Nipun's house for dinner, which was lovely and our first opportunity to spend time with some Christadelphians in Dhaka. Nipun cooked us some wonderful Bangladeshi food, despite suffering a bit with her pregnancy.

The only problem we encountered was getting a CNG (motorised rickshaw) from Mohammadpur to their house, which took us almost an hour to find as it was rushhour and then the journey itself took a long time in the busy polluted traffic. Thankfully Ken was there to help us along.

So, all in all a lovely evening but with so much information to process we were glad of our bed.

SUNDAY: New Job

2008-10-14T11:18:00.004+01:00

After our first night in our new flat we set off for the office at 7.30pm (the working week here is Sun - Thurs). The office is in Mirpur 10, which is about a 30 min journey in Bangladeshi traffic.

The office is just off the main road, opposite the Dhaka sports stadium (where they recently beat New Zealand at cricket, if anyone's a cricket fan). It's been converted from an old flat.

When we arrived we were introduced to the team, which currently number about 12, excluding us. We then had a short thought, reading and prayer, which they do every Sunday. 2 teachers from the school in Duaripara also joined us (Duaripara is the slum just outside Dhaka, where Oasis has one of its community projects to include a school). We were also joined by a colleague, who is based in Nilphamari in the North of the country, about 5 hours from Dhaka. Oasis has a factory, flat and bamboo plantation there.

The team are really friendly and made us feel so welcome.

We were allocated desks, both in the same room but not directly next to each other. The Oasis Transformation Team (that's the business) are in one room and the Oasis Community Projects team are in another room. Nicola is spending half the week with each team, so will be hotdesking.

In the OTL room there is 7 people, then there are another couple of lads working the workshop at the back of the office and Dave (the boss) in another office. The OCP team consists of Nicola and 2 others - all ex pats.

The OTL team employs mostly locals, which makes for a really vibrant working environment and is particularly useful for our Bangla learning.

We had a bit of an introductory session with Sandie, Jo and Dave, which was really useful.

In the afternoon we came back early from the office to meet a man who was fitting internet in our flat and we also got some passport photos for our sim cards, which a local colleague is very kindly sorting out for us.

In the evening we went to Dave's house for some dinner and entertainment from their 2 children - most amusing! We then stayed in their lovely flat and Dave took us to the office the following morning.

All in all great first day - can't wait to get stuck in.

Saturday: New Flat

2008-10-14T10:58:00.004+01:00

On Saturday we spent the morning with Dave and his 2 kids (aged 6 and 3), which was great fun, especially for Andy, who was privileged enough to play on his son's train set and meet all the Thomas the Tank Engine characters.

After that we had a trip to the Bagha Club (the English ex pat club) for a swim and a bite to eat and did a bit of food shopping for the flat. After that we moved into our new flat in Mohammadpur, which is about 25 mins from Sandie's flat in Banani.

We met our housekeeper at the flat, who had got it beautfully clean ready for us to move in and also got a bit of water ready for us.

It was all a bit scary moving to a new area having just got our bearings in Banani. The area is a lot more Bangladeshi - there are less Westerners / ex pats around and the Muslims in Mohammadpur are more conservative. So, we should get a trully enriched experience living in Mohammadpur.

Jo (another member of the team) lives round the corner, so she took us on a walk round the local area so we could get our bearings. We discovered a sort of wholefoods store and found our local supermarket (Family World).

Our flat is on the top floor (5th), which is great for the views and it means that no one is looking directly into our windows. However, it does also mean that it is even hotter up there than normal. On the plus side we are reliably informed that we will get considerably less mosquitoes because they tend not to fly that high (I'm sincerely hoping the same applies to cockroaches!)

The only downside to a top floor flat is when the lift breaks down and you have to carry 2 32kg cases all the way upstairs in the Bangladeshi heat. Luckily a very friendly guard was happy to help us.

There is a park outside the flat where the local kids play football and cricket, which is pretty cool and a small store on the corner (by store I really mean a small shack type thing, which is teaming with emergency goods - bread, crisps etc). There is also a large mosque not far away, so you can very vividly hear the call to prayer. Although we have discovered that whereever you are, you're not far from a Call to Prayer.

In our flat you walk in the door (having taken your shoes off, as is the Bangladeshi way) and you walk immediately into the dining room. Opposite there is the small kitchen and Bangladeshi cloackroom next to that. To the left is our bedroom with small balcony and ensuite. to the right there is a spare room that will become our study and then in the right hand corner is the lounge, also with a small balcony.

We haven't got much furniture at the moment - only a bed, sofa set made out of cane (to include coffee table), ironing board, fridge and water purifer but we will get more in the next few days.

Most Bangladeshi flats only have cold water, so if you want hot water you have to buy a heater. At the moment we've resisted but I'm not sure how long we'll be able to do that. We're also testing the fans out to see whether we can get away without AC but again, we might treat ourselves to an AC unit.

The flat is small and basic but when we've got a few homely touches in it will definately start to feel like home.

Nic's Bangladesh Birthday

2008-10-11T05:06:00.002+01:00

Well this is the first time ever Nic has spent her birthday in a foreign country (I could get used to it...!)

The day started with some cards that Andy had brought from a few friends and family and one or two pressies, which was lovely.

We then went to church in the morning and met some lovely people. Nic had the privilege of having her first Bangladeshi toilet experience - not as bad as first expected but think I'll stick to Western loos where possible.

After church we went back to someone's house for lunch, which was really yummy. A full on curry, eaten with the right hand of course!

In the afternoon we popped to the shops and then had our first rickshaw ride back to the flat - quite exciting in and amongst all the traffic. Although they're not really designed for 6'3". Not much room for Andy on the 'ickle Rickshaw.

After another church session in the afternoon we went to the ex pat club for a bit of dinner. We were very pleasantly surprised to see an English menu with everything on it from Fish and Chips to Jacket spud - who'd have thought?!!

Then after a tour round the lovely facilities at the club we came back to the flat for a DVD and then off to bed ready to start a new exciting day where we move into our new flat.

Anyway check out the pics if you haven't already done so ....

Greetings from Bangladesh

2008-10-09T12:26:00.002+01:00

Well after a teary goodbye we've arrived safely in Bangladesh and have even had our first exploration.

The flights from Bham - Dubai - Dhaka worked really well, although a little tiring and the second leg of the journey was kind of stressful with loads of men coughing their guts up all over the plane but fortunately not in our immediate vacinity, so hopefully we should have avoided all nasty germs

Got out of Dhaka fine - bags were there straight away on the carousel and Sandie (lovely lady from Oasis) was waiting for us complete with local driver John - perfect. The journey back to Sandie's flat was a bit hair raising - the strategy seems to be find a space, hoot to signify your presence and move in. Not sure we'll get used to that very quickly.

After a bit of a snooze and a bite to eat we went out on an outing in the local area this afternoon and stumbled across this Hindu festival, which was going on. They have erected a massive temporary undercover area to house 3 large goddesses and there was bright colours, lots of seats, dancing, a band and artists painting all going on in this area. We went in and joined in - all very exciting. Nic even got asked to join in the dancing but wimped out (5 hours in and I'm not quite brave enough for that yet).

We then wandered the streets getting our bearings with Sandie and then went to a Salvation Army shop and cafe for an Iced Tea. It was lovely - it stocked loads of great art and crafty things, all Fair Trade and it event sold those cloth advent calendar things and loads of Christmas decorations, so maybe we will get a Christmas after all! Then we were very brave and went for a wander on our own. As Westerners we get stared at wherever we go but it's actually not as bad as you think.

After church tomorrow morning we have been invited to lunch with someone from Sandie's church (kind of an open house affair), so that should be good - first attempt at eating with our hands. After that we'll come back to the flat and then head over to the ex pats club for a bit of a swim, socialise and evening meal. Apparently there's a few ex pat clubs around the place and they're great for getting to know people, so that's what we intend to do - so should have a very nice birthday. Might even get a glass of vino at the club...!

Anyway, missing the UK but feeling very excited about what lies ahead. Not nearly as scary as we were imagining and with Sandie holding our hands for the first few days it should be fine. We've seen pictures of our flat and hope to move in on Saturday.

Going, going.............

2008-10-02T17:11:00.004+01:00

Hey everyone, sorry this update has taken so long...

We're still in the country but are flying out on the 8th October - tickets confirmed and everything. So we've spent the last few weeks packing, sorting out the house, ringing banks, insurance and all the other companies you can think of and packing!

We've completed the 'Smith Tour' and said goodbyes to family and friends and have recently been been staying at our parents house whilst we sort out those final few things.

Thanks to all of you for your love, support and prayers in getting us this far. We're both really excited (and a little nervous) about what lies ahead and we hope you'll remember us and the work we are doing over the next nine months.

Love

Andy and Nic

Fundraising Update

2008-08-26T09:08:00.006+01:00

Hi Everyone,

With the help of family and friends Nic, Tim, Pete, Jess and I managed to complete our 24hr Triathlon and start raising some money for Bangladesh.

The sponsored event went really well although we've since discovered that apparently we had the Cross-Trainer on the hardest level! (oh well!!). So this week we all feel a bit tired but quite fit!

We're looking forward to our Barn Dance now on Sept 6th (Tickets still available!) and Westleigh's Annual Fun Day in between! (3oth August - so come on down for Bouncy Castle, BBQ, stalls and games!)

Thanks to everyone for their sponsorship and a BIG thankyou to all thos who came down to church to cheer us on!

Love to you all,

Andy ( and the Triathlon Team!)

six weeks to go

2008-08-18T18:38:00.002+01:00

Hi all,

Not sure if anyones looking at this yet?
We've now sent the deposit off and we've got 6 weeks left till we get going (God willing). We're hearing more and more information about what is goign on there and ways in whcih we can help support the Christadelphian Community as it branches into three.

We're now in the process of fund Rasisng and are planning two events:

1) SPONSORED 24 HOUR MACHINE TRIATHALON CHALLENGE

The challenge will take place over 24 hours. We will be using 3 pieces of gym equipment: rowing machine; cross trainer and bike, spending 8 hours on each piece of equipment.

We are doing the challenge with Nicola’s brother Pete and his girlfriend, Jess.

The challenge will take place from 7.00pm on Friday 22nd August until 7pm on Saturday 23rd August.

If you want to sponsor us the let us know via email: andysmith.design@gmail.com

2) BANGLADESH BARN DANCE

We are holding a barn dance on Saturday 6th September at the Wycliffe rooms in Lutterworth. We’ve got a band booked and food will be provided. More details about the event is on the flyer attached.

If you or any of your friends and family want to come please let us know how many tickets you want and we’ll allocate you some tickets and then you can pay us next time you see us or on the night.

Let us know by email: andysmith.design@gmail.com

Love to all

Andy and Nic

And they're off.....

2008-07-22T15:55:00.004+01:00

Ok, after a long, long search and lots of prayers and conversations we've finally got a plan.

We're hoping to go to Bangladesh for 9 months starting from the end of September 2008. We're going with a Christian charity called Oasis who work with communities and churches to show Christs love to those in need.

Nicola will be working with the 'Stop the Traffik' Campaign to help women and children who are sold as slaves all around the world. She will be working alongside those who have been trafficked as well as trying to change government policies and intiatives.

Andy will be helping to set up a Fair Trade factory producing products made from Bamboo. The factory needs a designer to help create product ideas and arrange set up of the factory and shipment of goods. The factory will provide much needed jobs for some of the poorest people in the slums of Dhaka.

Alongside all that we will be joining up with the growing Christadelphian Community in Dhaka with the hope of learning from and supporting the family there.

But in the mean time.... theres lots to do, funds to be raised and things to be organised. We both hope you'll be able to support us in our fund rasing efforts by either sponsoring us or coming to our Barn Dance Extravaganza (Sept 6th).

More details to come soon!