Kids understand parents

Our life is small in many ways - it mostly consists of getting food and learning Bangla.  We live in a rented apartment with a minimum of furniture, have no car and no bicycle.  Our days are simple and - at least until the kids get home - fairly quiet after walking home from class & the bazaar.  Each day also contains little pleasures - one of our chief ones is making coffee.  You can get very good coffee in Dhaka now.

Tonight, the kids were, well, being kids.   It was a bit noisy.

Exasperated, I said, "Pipe down!  It's dinner time, I need you to be quiet for a bit.  Act like grown-ups: be boring!"

I almost fell off my chair laughing when Jack grabbed his mug, and, in a monotone said, "Boy, I...sure...love....coffee...."

Only 300 Taka, for all three!

This is a pet store (it's also our balcony). Under the stool on the left is a cat and, I believe, two dogs.  The dokan owner offered them to sale for me for 300 Taka.  I opted for the Asian elephant with the pink hood - also 300Taka.

Take 2

I wrote about this once in 2011, so forgive the repetition but it is a little different this time.  In 2011 I'd never been this far from home nor for this long, and had never been homesick before.  I didn't recognize what was going on initially, then.  Even so, I knew I'd be back home soon, so I experienced it mostly as a sense of wrongness: the trees were wrong, the dappled sunlight wasn't quite the right angle, the background sounds weren't quite right, the temperature was above 2°F.

This time, I've been aware of it simmering in the background for quite a while.  Emotions have been running right next to the surface.  Generally easily kept at bay by 'counting the cost' or reflecting on vocation or just plain keeping busy ("What was that verb tense?  Do we need more cauliflower?").  But like most times when you keep busy to avoid thinking about something, it's not dealt with.  Today I was caught unexpectedly by tears after an email about the passing of a friend's mother.  I then let myself think about missing my family, my friends, folks I worked alongside.

Our kids on the the other hand don't seem to avoid it.  They are happy, excited about the new things, thinking about their new friends, school events, exams or learning cricket, but they are also absolutely aware.
This morning Jack was helping Annie get up to get ready for school.

AE: "I miss my best friend"  (Jonathan)

JT: "Yeah.  I know.  I miss my best friend too.  But at least we have each other."

And, as is so often the case, I learn from my children, rather than the other way 'round.

A few favorite words

My current three favorite words in Bangla sound like English ones:

হব Hobo - "I will become"

চিকন Chicken - "slim"

মিন্তি Minty - "porter"









Now a brief edition of "overheard in the Herman family" (things we never expected to say in our life)

walking along to road to language class
Laura: Help me remember these three things to ask our teacher...
Ben: What was that?  I almost fell in the sewer.  I missed it.


Misspeaking in Bangla - with a very subtle difference in intonation:
এখাবার মজা!  "This meal is tasty!"
এখাবার মোজা!  "This meal is socks!"



We were taught to expect to make about 1,000 mistakes a day while learning the language.  You have to get up up pretty early to get them all in, so we start early.  Honestly, though, you feel like a three-year-old much of the day.  It's a major success to both understand, "It's cloudy today and yesterday was very cold." and say, "This meal is socks!"

Daddy Brand Toys

A new farmyard playset.

note the duck swimming in the well

Also known as recycling our cardboard boxes.

It has been explained that the sheep prefers living in the hayloft

In a future post I'll show Bangladeshi recycling.

Flexibility

Completely unrelated neat picture

We were told during part of our training for this that our middle names would need to be changed to 'flexibility'.

Our visa in Bangladesh, although good for a year when it was issued, required that we leave the country every 90 days.  Interesting.  We're not sure why it's that way, but it is, for now.  It's been three months, so we are now briefly out of the country but now must extend our time here for an additional two days, unexpectedly.  It's good practice!

Murgi

Hungry?  Thinking about what to make for dinner?

Just wait an hour or so and listen for a voice down in the street crying, "Murgi! Murgi! Muuuuuuuurgiiiii!"

Then head down to the street...