Christmas Day

Christmas Day started with a Bangladeshi breakfast in our favoured local food barn. Roti, curried vegetables, omelettes (without chillies for the little one) and cha all round.
Our guests patiently wait for dinner that was served on Bangla time (2 hours late).
Luckily there were delicious home-made dips and knitted christmas puddings to keep us entertained.
Gavin and Simon enjoying special christmas beverages.
Sam in his Christmas punjabi suit, playing with his new wind-up chicken (that no longer winds up).
Serving up.
And the grand finale - christmas pudding served with caramel custard, chocolate cake, mince pancakes, chocolate balls, apple crumble and shortbread!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve began with local friends helping us to get our hands on decorations, including a borrowed tree from the CRP nursery. The christmas lights, which were wired up specially for us using a cable pulled off an old lamp, would have made the engineers amongst you proud.
With much excitement the decoration team enjoyed home-made pizzas with naan bases and home-grown mushrooms as we tested out the stove-top camping oven.
Meanwhile, the contest was on for the creation of the best snow flake. Pictured below is Gavin in the process of setting a high standard.
Kath, intent on having angels for the tree, initially created ghosts out of white material..... until aluminium foil was supplied for wings and halos.
Our master piece.
Snow flake exhibition.

Christmas Food Preparation

As Christmas puddings and mince pies are not easily acquired in the 'desh, we embarked on a mission to create our own. Many ingredients were unavailable so a little creative license was used and a few ingredients were swapped. Dates replaced raisins, local sweet bread replaced regular bread for crumbs, and the rind and juice of something green and round that could be either a lime or a lemon was used.
Grated date molasses became a good substitute for brown sugar (with a little extra white sugar.)
Then the standard 6+ hours boiling.
All the while fueled by Si's spiced tea.

The Lunghi

Step 1 - Put lunghi on over head

Step 2 - Fold pleats

Step 3 - Tie loose material around pleats

Step 4 - Neaten pleats

Step 5 - Pose for photo

Step 6 - Test out the shorts option

Step 7 - Relax!

Shishu Polli Plus

We had the opportunity to visit Shishu Polli Plus, also known as Sreepur village. SPP, a centre for destitute women and children was set up 20 years ago by Pat Kerr, an English OT turned flight stewardess. The centre gained a lot of publicity through the involvement of British Airways in the late 80's and 90's. Set in a beautiful location, the buildings and grounds are well maintained and provide a lovely environment for the residents.
80% of the vegetables consumed are home grown, there are bees for honey, dairy cows and 2 fish ponds which supplies everyone with 2 serves of fish a week.
Vocational training programmes are offered to women and adolescents including weaving, tailoring, mechanics, paper making, printing and computer skills.
SPP seems to have significantly changed the lives of many women and children and given them opportunities they would never have been able to access otherwise.

A visit to the brick factory

We jumped at Sofia's idea to visit the local brick factories and learn the processes involved, much to the surprise of our local colleagues who dropped us there on their way to Dhaka.
Thanks to Sofia's proficient Bangla, we slowly pieced the process together. First the mud is mixed with water to get the right consistency. It is then compressed using the contraption pictured below.
The mud is packed into this mold.
Then left to dry in the sun. All of the bricks are turned regularly to ensure even drying which is back-breaking and time-consuming work for the labourers.
The bricks are then baked for approx 24 hours in an enormous kiln which we inadvertently walked on. Luckily we were warned of the big holes. All of the work is done manually with bricks moved individually for the most part.
A crowd quickly formed to get a peek at the strange foreigners.
For further info on how bricks are carried in Bangladesh, check out the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9AUUnalkU8&feature=related

Eid ul Azha

Eid ul Azha, a 3 day muslim celebration known as the festival of sacrifice is today into its final day. Yesterday we joined in the family celebrations with our colleague, Rois.

We decided to again don the local dress for the momentous occasion. Sarah enlisted the help of the security guard to get the sari right.

The rickshaw and various other forms of local transport were no mean feat in a sari. Respect for the locals' ability to manage increases by the day.

Vicky, a UK OT student joined us for the day. (Pictured above with Rois, our host). We began to feel like celebrities as several different family combinations were photographed with us. (There could be about 8 more similar pictures inserted here.)The family sacrificed a cow - just before we arrived (we weren't upset not to witness such an event). We'd certainly seen our share of sacrifices in the streets on the way out. The sacrifice is then divided into various portions - some for family members some to be given to the poor.

Then the day of eating began. This is one example of the numerous bowls of sweet, noodle desserts we were offered. This was followed by rice and chicken (times 2) then more noodles, then rice and beef, cha, more sweet dishes, more drinks etc.
We then lugged our swollen bellys through the village to visit numerous family members, friends of family and 'friends of friends' of family of our host.

On the way we saw the local village sights including the school (above). And some home-made bridges which become particularly necessary during the rainy season.

After much force-feeding and amazing hospitality by our host and his family, we returned to CRP and attempted to participate in a basketball match with some Hindu friends who did not have the same family commitments during this public holiday period.

Changing Lifestyle

There has been a sudden change to the weather which has forced us to seek out alternatives to the cold shower. Pictured below is our water heating, ready to be tansferred to a bucket and mixed with some cold water for a home made hot 'shower'.

We have also had to add blankets to our bed.

And since discovering this on our curtain, and not being able to catch it, we tend to keep the mosquito net down during the day.

At times we also alter our outfit slightly for warmth.

I am pretty sure the lunghi doesn't add warmth... but once discovered, doesn't seem to be parted with easily!

We are also very excited with some recent kitchen modifications.
Check out what was once our 'squat' sink!!!! Our life becomes more luxurious by the minute!

Wheel-chair sports

On weekdays at 4pm, wheel-chair sports are played. Some people choose to play boule, which is well suited to those with pressure sores who are on trolleys.However by far the most popular is wheel-chair basketball.
This is fine for therapists who rock climb... but for those with soft, office hands, rusty rims and a fiercely competitive nature can cause a bit of harm.
During the recovery phase, we decided to introduce wheel-chair aussie-rules footy.
This involved much hilarity.

But as yet has not been repeated due to the continued popularity of basketball.