One thing I'd like to say is to again compliment Bangladesh on the people. Things are different here in India, as a tourist you fight to survive. People see you as a target and they are relentless about extracting money from you. In Bangladesh people are soo poor and live in incredibly cramped and polluted situations but I've never met so many honest, giving people regardless of income level.
My last couple days in Bangla were the best of the trip. I dug up this really cool orphange that is really poor. Bottomley. Run by a bunch of nuns. 140 girls and 5 boys ages 5-15. They nuns are awesome and do great work here. The kids are incredible and so well mannered even though they are sooo poor. They basically wear the same clothes everday and eat fish and rice. So anything you do or give them is like Christmas and they are so very appreciative. They loved the fact that I visit them and I spent a lot of time talking with the kids. My friend Dianne is a teacher in Minneapolis and will setup a penpal deal with these kids and the kids are super exicted about it. They feel invisible to the world so getting this type of attention is big thing for them.
http://www.bottomleyhomeorphanage.org.uk/
I really didn't do much besides talk to the kids. For all the donor people out there turns out the goverment books didn't show up this year so I bought them a bunch of school books at a the perfect time because school starts next week and they didn't have any books!! I also donated a lot of money for medicine and misc. They have to pay their own doctors, and when its rainy season they get a lot of diseases. They really wanted me to take them on a picnic but the timing was not right, so instead I want crazy buying them sweets and candy. They only get rice and fish mostly so sweets are like gold. It was total bedlam, the kids and staff went nuts.
This is not a good picture but the story is good. We went to order some special sweets from the factory. Well the factory is this "house" about the size of the top floor of my house 1000 sq/ft. Basically brick/bamboo walls and tin roof. 5 families live here 40 people!!! Let me say again 40 people!!! Everyone pretty much crams into the same beds together and I won't go any further. The remaining floor space is the factory. They make these egg and sugar balls. The guy was telling me about the great quality as a huge cockroach 1/2 the size of my fist was walking down the wall in back of him.
Here I am handing out sweets. Kids are the best.
Here we are buying sweets in shop. We cleaned them out of a bunch of stuff. The nun was really sweetie, wanted to know why I didn't go to church and prayed for me.
Here are the kids all lined up. I was amaze they were so polite and orderly considering they are so hungry for anything non-rice/fish. They all seemed super happy all the time.
Moms and beggar kids approach cars all the time. 3 years ago there were crowds of them this year only occaisonlly so maybe things aren't as bad. Hard to turn your back on some of them but you are only reinforcing their begging. I hate this part.
I also then visited my other Save The Children kid Selma. She is 5 and is in her second year with the program. STC moved from Shilpi's village in the NE to Selmas village in the west because Shilpi's village is doing great and Selma's village is so poor and the school system is bad and they have so many problems.
I spent two days visiting STC programs and STC training sessions. STC gets about 80 volunteer mothers and sends them to training. They learn about hygene, sex ed, reading/writing cirriculum, group games, etc. The goal is to give kids a head start before they hit school. They work in tandem with the school system.
One of my kids Selma start last year and is really cute. Here are pictures of Selma and her classmates and her dad. I gave them a bunch of candy and jewerly and that was exicting for them. Her dad works as a farm hand. They are all eating and doing well, but if dad gets sick or or there is a disease or the weather is not right then they all have big trouble.
Oh yeah, bird flu hit this village, Dhaka, and New Delhi while I was there. Hmmm common denominator???
SOOOO that's the end of the touchy feely tour for Mike. High points for me were:
1) Saying goodbye to Shilpi's grandma
2) My birthday party
3) The orphange kids were awesome
I am continuing to have contact with all these people and hope to visit them again. I want to adopt the whole orphange and find sponsors for them My next project I guess!!!! One has to dream you know!!!
Anyways after this I'm back to being selfish self-centered materialist Mike, the one you all know and love. Rock climbing in India with Sunny, and biking with #1 girlfriend Laura in Thailand and Nepal. Can't wait to see her!
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