Smelling Rain - Or Not

Last night Jensen stuck his nose to the window, as I was tucking the boys into bed, and said, "I smell rain. Actually, it smells more like chicken nuggets." It still makes me chuckle! We are still longing for that thunder storm to cool things down!

The days have been flying by. We enjoyed the party at Prokritee one morning, to celebrate Bengali New Year. We dressed up, ate lots of sweets and took photos. I am blessed to work with some really great people.

Austin spent a couple of days in Mymensingh and it went pretty smoothly here. The boys handled things pretty well, maybe because I was handling things pretty well. Last night we watched a cowboy movie together so they went to bed dreaming of some day living on a ranch and riding horses and rounding up cattle, after which they would chase chickens. That was Pruitt's idea. I have no idea where it came from but they were pretty thrilled about the idea.

Riley's touch on my week was telling me, "Mommy, I love you more than all the popcorn and cotton candy in the world."

My days have been pretty full with food prep. It seems there is a certain bottomless freezer in the neighborhood - not that I'm complaining. It's been fun to try and fill it up, it's just not happened as fast as I would like.

Well, it's almost officially the weekend here and I'm looking forward to chilling out - in the heat of course, with the smell of chicken nuggets in the air.

Thriving In the Heat

We are in the middle of the hottest part of the hot season. While I feel like I'm wilting and having a constant battle with grumpiness, some things seem to be thriving, especially certain flowering bushes and trees. How they do it, I don't know. I wish I could be more like them.

I feel like I'm in the middle of a swirling stream, where things are constantly changing and leaving, flowing on, yet here I stay. I'm about to say "good bye" to some good friends and I am very unhappy about that. I feel forgotten by so many old friends, like my past is just that, "the past". I'm constantly seeing a stream of new faces. Life changes so fast. I should be used to it by now, given the fact that I have lived all over and moved more times than I can easily remember. But I'm not. Change is still hard for me. And while I have felt a shift in my soul, a "settling in" you could say, I am sometimes struck by random longings - to look through the Sunday papers and clip coupons, to call up a friend and go out for coffee, to go out to the garden and dig around, to go put gas in the car and drive for hours down the highway, to pop a handful of fresh blueberries into my mouth... but here I am. Yet, "here" is a good place too and I remind myself that in every place I have been I have known both happiness and loneliness. The biggest issue is not where I am or who I'm with, It's who I am and Who my heart belongs to. If my soul is at rest, I can make it through this heat, through more changes. I may not have fresh blueberries but soon I will have fresh mangoes. I may not have coupons, but who needs them when you can bargain at the local markets. And while my heart aches and misses my old friends and family and that place of belonging, I know that there is no easy solution to that ache. But I have seen enough by now to know that aches are a part of life, no matter where I am. Am I repeating myself here? Sometimes talking to myself helps me feel better. Smile.

A song that Sara Groves sings is running through my head -

I've been painting pictures of Egypt, leaving out what it lacked, the future looks so hard and I want to go back, but the places that used to fit me, cannot hold the things I've learned. Those roads were closed off to me, while my back was turned...

So here I am. I have no idea what the future holds, how long we will be able to be here or what will happen after that... but I have no doubt that we are in the right place for now and I am counting my blessings. And right now 4 of them are sitting in the next room, working together on Lego and they will soon be hungry... so off I go.

Party Time

It's hard to believe it's been 8 years since Akash (Bangla for sky) joined our family. We had a lot of fun celebrating his birthday yesterday.


He was awake before 6a.m, full of excitement! So we started the day out by opening presents from Grandma, brought over by recent visitors. To say he was pleased would be an understatement!


We took some cupcakes in for his class in the afternoon and then ended the day with a party here with Grandpa Millers and take-out burgers and an ice cream cake - and, of course, more presents! As I tucked a very happy boy into bed last night, I again thanked God for the amazing privilege of mothering these boys.

Going Bananas

Another crazy thing we did while our visitors were here, was take a trip to Old Dhaka. We took a boat ride on the river first thing and saw boatloads of fruit coming in.


It's impossible to put all the sights and sounds into words... tiny narrow streets, crowded with people in brightly colored saris and punjabis, the smell of incense and sweat mingled with sights of Hindu gods and silver shops on Hindu street...


... being crowded into a rickshaw and literally sticking together in the heat, yet the relief from the sun but not necessarily from the stares...


... beautiful Star Mosque, which was closed, the hand of an artist rising among the rubble of ancient buildings that are crumbling from years of heat and monsoons...


... but most of all, the intense heat. Forget about being hungry, just give me something cold to drink! We finally found a little shop that had cold drinks and we very happy! We were still nuts enough to do some shopping in Bongo Bazaar, a market even more crowded and narrow and hot than Old Dhaka's streets. The power was off and the boys grumpy so we didn't last long. We made our way close to home, found a pizza shop and cooled off!

All too soon it was time for our visitors to leave. It was a very sad and quiet ride home from the airport, yet we were all so thankful for the gift of this visit. We felt encouraged and refreshed and carry with us a treasure full of happy memories!

Heading Home

All too quickly, it was time to head home. The trip down the mountain was lovely, passing through tea gardens and many little towns along the way. We stopped for a tea break and ordered a plate of momos, only to find a cockroach steamed into the dough of one of them. Needless to say, that took away my appetite. We stayed at a hotel in Siliguri for the night, to break up the trip back a bit more. The next morning we hired a jeep to take us to the border, in hopes of finding room on a bus to take us the rest of the way. We crossed the border with relative ease, stopping at only 5 different little check posts. We then discovered that the buses would not leave until evening. So we hired a micro (minivan of sorts) to take us to the next big town where we could get a direct bus back to Dhaka. Because of the small size of the vehicle, our driver was able to by pass the bridge that was out and thus save us a couple of hours. We pulled into the Rangpur bus stop and immediately were surrounded by beggars and bus-ticket-sellers. By this time it was mid-afternoon and we hadn't eaten lunch yet. Another crazy set of events transpired, including needing to desperately bargain for seats since we were running out of local currency and there was no place to change over more. In the end, kindness was shown and Austin spent his last takas on bread and bananas for lunch, just as the bus was ready to pull out. We were very happy to get home about 10:30p.m.! The only downer was finding that acid from one of Austin's batik supplies, had leaked all over the studio floor, where we had our bedding. It was quite late till we got it cleaned up but, still, it was good to be home.


Here are some scenes from the road, on various trips we took.

Highlights

The boys were absolutely thrilled to get pony rides!


Despite the hassle of getting there, we had a great time in Darjeeling. The best highlight was seeing my brother married and so happy! It was so good to get to know my sister-in-law too. I am very blessed to have them both in my life.


Another hightlight was staying at the Dekeling Hotel. We had stayed there years ago when Jensen was a baby and the Tibetan couple who runs it remembered us and are as charming today as they were 9 years ago!


Riley's highlight was the dog, Dooma, who he showered with love and affection every time she came around!

More of Darjeeling

It was foggy most of the time we were in Darjeeling, but once morning we were blessed with clear skies and a view of the Kanchenjunga range. It was breathtaking!


We took a walk around town and spotted some ornery monkeys. Later we walked to the zoo and the boys were really excited about seeing this snow leopard.


We stopped at the Hot Stimulating Cafe on our way back, for a cup of tea. Riley couldn't hold still so went outside and found something to do while waiting.



There is nothing like a cup of good hot tea on a cold day! Something which Darjeeling has lots of - both tea and cold days!

Darjeeling

The night after our visitors arrived, we did a crazy thing. We took an overnight bus to India. It took a couple of hours to get out of the city and then the AC stopped working and everyone was yelling at the driver, literally. So we stopped and they messed around and got it going again. Then at about 5:15a.m., we stopped again. I thought maybe we were at the border but, instead, were at a bridge that was under construction and would be closed until 7:30 a.m. Soon the boys were awake and getting antsy so we got off the bus awhile and they ran around and rather put on a show for the hundreds of other people that were there waiting. Lets just say that the line of buses and trucks was rather long. 2 and a half hours later, we were on our way once more. We finally got to the border, had breakfast of eggs and chapati and eventually made our way out of Bangladesh and crossed over into India. It was noon till we were on our way again. When we finally arrived at Siliguri, the last stop where we were to get a jeep up the mountain, we were very weary. Austin tried in vain to book our return tickets (which the bus people in Dhaka said they could not do, that we would have to do it once we reached the Indian side) but by the time he was waited on ( everyone else had been pushing the tickets and passports in ahead of everyone else) there were not enough seats left. To make a long story short, we finally booked a jeep and just left and decided to "wing it" ourselves on the way back. We had a 3 hour ride up the mountains and by the time we got to our hotel in Darjeeling, it was dark, cold and raining. It was also exactly 24 hours since we had left our house in Dhaka to begin the long journey. Needless to say, we slept very good that night, under mounds of thick blankets. After coming from the heat of the plains, it was a shock to feel so very cold. The first thing we did, after breakfast the next morning was to buy everyone a sweater or shawl.


We enjoyed a ride on the toy train and had some nice views of the city and surrounding areas. The boys were facinated by the steam engine.


We stopped for tea at a little shop at the turn-around point and made friends with the little girl there.

Treats

It was like Christmas, all over again, when my brother and wife arrived. Believe me, as happy as we were for the stuff they brought, we were over-the-moon happy to have them visit us!


The boys were very happy to hear from their cousins and have been delving into many special treats that we forgot even existed! More to come...