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

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

Read more...

Happy New Year

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

Read more...

Merry Christmas

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

Read more...