I just celebrated my birthday in a most unusual but wonderful way! I made cinnamon rolls to start the day right - so sorry to make all of you jealous! I camped out at the computer a while and read emails from some of you, which made my day! Then we did the culturally appropriate thing and bought sweets (mishti) to take to the office staff, in honor of the day. Eventually we made our way to the river where someone had arranged for a boat to take us down river to the Agriculture University where we could walk around and enjoy the scenery.





We had an hour and a half ride (it was supposed to be an hour) down and it was lovely! We passed by lots of boats carrying loads of sand, some of them looked like big sand castles. Finally we got to one that was being loaded and saw how it was done. The river is shallow right now, so they have one person in the water, getting buckets full of sand from the river bed, handing it up to the guy on the boat who drains out the water and flips it upside down. When the boat is full, they take it to where it can be unloaded by other guys and carried in baskets on top of their heads. Then it is dumped on a pile, to be later loaded into big trucks and taken to a construction site. Eventually city life gave way to total countryside and I relished the quiet and greenness of it all. Banana tree groves, rice fields planted at the rivers' edge, a bari (homestead) situated between a field and a forested area. The boys started to get antsy and threatened to jump in the water - I think they wanted to see if their life jackets would indeed hold them up! We were quite glad to reach our destination and walk again. We found our way to the botanical gardens, which seemed to hold more people than flowers.

As you can see, the boys weren't having the time of their lives, but they did find a slide and managed to push each other around on it a bit. We kept drawing crowds and were tired and hungry so we didn't stay long. We found an interesting sculpture and mural from the war. We made our way back to the boat, bought some chips, peanuts and bottled water and were on our way back home.

The trip back was a quiet one as most of the river folk were eating lunch, which we soon began to dream of. Still, it was so nice to be out and I enjoyed it the full. Riley eventually fell asleep and we emptied our bag of snacks and drained our water bottles, while our boatman kept rowing us towards home.
We passed some elephants putting on a show. The crowd gathered to watch is very much like crowds we sometimes gather. Though I must say it has not been as bad as I expected here in Mymensingh. But back to our boat ride...

Here is one last photo from the trip, of a lady at the river's edge, doing her laundry. While I was enjoying being Queen of the day, I was saddened to realize that the women I was passing would probably never be shown the love and appreciation I was being shown. I looked at my dear husband and 3 little men and realized just how blessed I am. I long to find ways to let women here know how truly precious they are.

We arrived home at 3:30, to find lunch waiting on the table. Our helper had worked extra hard to make a birthday treat of sweet rice, besides fried vegetables and flat bread. It was so wonderful!

In the evening we decided to try out a local Bengali/Chinese Restaurant. We looked at the menu but couldn't find any Chinese food, so we ordered some chicken and nan. As we were leaving, we passed another door, more ornate, which was the chinese section of the restaurant. We just shook our heads, chuckled and went home for carrot cake and ice cream. A great way to end a great day!