Three cups of tea

Every where I go we have a cup of tea. There is always time for a cup of cha with milk. "You must have a cup of tea, please, I insist."Okay, Dohnovad(sp), sugar no"

RCC Masajidda Literacy Center

We spent most of the morning in Kumira, Chittagong Region, visiting the Agraba club's projects. This club does so many projects here it would take an entire page to list them. And as we are riding a very bumpy bus back to Dhaka I won't. Suffice it to say this club would put to shame many clubs in the states. They've built a school for girls, a school for boys, a school for very poor rural students, deep water
wells and lavatories. By the way we are going quite fast, weaving in and out of our "lane", an E ticket. Here is a snap of Jim as we await the arrival of this bus.

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.