As Andrea, said so little wifi time so much to tell. Here is a photo of Andrea and a sweet heart of a young bride at a wedding in Chittagong. This wedding had the normal 2000 plus guests. They asked how many at my wedding I said that there could have been less than the front row. The bride was concerned that we were being taken care of. Are you having a good time? Have you eaten yet? 2000 people here and she was concerned about our comfort! She was having to sit on the dais for hours for photo ops.

By the way, Andrea's and Marjorie's host family's totally dressed the ladies for the occasion and they looked good. Represent! Marjorie's host took her out and did the complete spa treatment! Marjorie was in heaven. It's not all hard here. We are being well taken care of and everyone is in good health. Inshallah.

Cox Bazar

From left to right, just kidding, you can see Jim Bailey on left, me, John K in back and Jafar, the main reason that we are here, the international surfer, in the green shirt on the right. We are all
assembled here at the meeting of the RC of CB to view the movie "Gum for My Boat", a movie that Jim brought about Jafar and the Bangladesh Surf Club, to watch.

Experiential build up

So many experiences, so little blogging opportunity. We're nearly on the road to Cox's Bazar now - an overnight bus ride is in our near future. A few standout snippets from the last few days:
walking the narrow, lantern- lit hall of our Sundurban steamer ship before dawn, and hearing the voices of our wiry and tough ship hands speaking Bengali on the dark deck ... One of those moments when I was reminded just how remote and exotic our excursion is. The Sundurbans was ... calm, grey- brown waters, narrow canals, outings in a rustic motor boat, ducking wayward Mangrove tree roots
...
Saying I like coconut and receiving juice from a bushel of fresh green ones liberated from a tree In Joymudi - the riverbank village we visited on said motorboat. We got to say what's up to the locals there, who live in mud huts with thatched roofs. They fish and gather. They are happy and pretty gregarious ... We enjoyed staring at each other. It's amazing how many barriers get broken down with smiles and impromptu juggling (thank you Jim Bailey). What else about our 4-day adventure through the national park? ... We experienced: Huge slick mud flats dense with palm trees royal Bengal tiger prints a very dusty crocodile roughing it with basic cold showers (or no showers) We hear lots of people visit the Sunderbans to calm their Dhaka-distressed nerves, and indeed we all dug getting some needed downtime.

--
andrea barkan
805 - 815 - 9876

Shahreen studying

Shahreen is seven. She is in grade 1. She is doing her math homework
which is subtraction with exchange, (borrowing). She is a very good
student.

Asma's roof garden

Andrea's host mother has a wonderful garden on the roof and they are very excited because they will have some excellent strawberrys soon. On her left are tomatoes. She also has among other things a lemon tree in a pot with blooms. Reminds me of my own trees in Ojai.

Shopping at Pink City

Marjorie: shopping for an outfit in this stall. Material for three pieces was about 2700 taka and the tayloring was 500 taka (for dollars divide by 70)

Host family

From left Sariya, Andrea,Jim ,Samira, John

Andreas host daughters

These are Andreas and for awhile Marjories host daughters Sariya and Samira not pictured little sister Shahreen, "monti" who was at school at the time. Sariya was there all the time and even though she was a little under the weather herself she allways was helping us out. Samira came in later and was also an absolute gem our families here just took us in and made us feel like part of there family.

River cruise in Sundarbans National Park

Read John's elegant post below. This will give you a taste of the forest. The Internet connection is very slow and finicky here, so I had to keep this short. Will try to add more soon. ~K

Talking w/ some physics students in the local park.

Sundarbans

Photos soon to follow.
We returned last night to Dhaka and will miss the Sundarbans. The Owner and entrepeneuner Md (Mohammed) Faruk talked yesterday morning about his love for this forest and all forests in stating that he thought of the forest as a mother, something you would treat with care and respect, protect it and love it.

The outboat dropped us off on the shore and we all trekked across the land through fields that gave the feeling of hiding a tiger or two, to a wide open beach. We always had avoupke of guards carrying old enfield rifles. There were other groups there as well and the consequential litter. Faruk had his people picking up trash the entire trip so that when we left the beach and trails were clean. He then took the large bag of trash out on his boat and back to Kulna. Md Faruk was very impressive he not only talked the talk but walked the walk. I hope he understands what I mean by that. Make this man a Rotarian!

Thank you to the great man DG Huda the Governor who made this happen. An inside joke was that the DG always gave credit to his District Rotarian staff and they all said the DG should get all the credit because he is the Governor.

I just heard an update on Haiti. Awful news. In reflection on Bangladesh at first you have the impression of chaos and there is that, but you realize it is not mayhem. There is order in this and the people are living by code and ethics, Allah Jane(e), (praise to god) because with the sheer amount of people everywhere, if people here did not have it in their hearts to do the right thing, well then it would be mayhem.

With every Banladeshi that we have met there is a deeply felt concern for the wellfare and eventual uplifting of the poor. This manifests itself in many ways but it certainly isn't idol musing of the upper the classes. I believe that there are 159 Rotary clubs, 4500 members and 5000
Rotoractors (a college age Rotary Group), very impressive numbers for a single RI District. These are all people who have dedicated themselves to the Rotary ideal of 'service above self'.

I will try to stay away from becoming too political but I must say that large corporations with distant and passive ownership must realize that their long term interest will be met when the people and the country that they are using is cared for as if it was their own. Think: clean water, sanitation, education for all. Clean water, sanitation, education for all. Clean water...

Service above self
John

From John's cell phone
805 798 0886
Jlkenyon@aol.com John's Bangladesh cell is +8801710308215