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

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

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Visit to the Zoo

**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

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A Week Later (sorry...)

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)

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