Mahale People.

Participatory Rural Appraisal.
I had the opportunity to tag along with a team doing some of the preliminary assessments of some remote Mahale villages in the western region of Bangladesh about a week and a half ago. This was my first experience of meeting the people of these small communities face to face. It was incredibly refreshing to see their lives and hear their stories. I was blessed beyond measure to experience the richness of their welcome amidst their lack of earthly things.


The beautiful mud houses they build.

Jenny takes some notes of her observations while waiting out the rain.

Mud oven and fuel beside it.

Basket weaving, a Mahale trademark.

Baby. :)

Beautiful creations.

Village in Matindor.

Village in Jeol.

USA Independence Day Celebration.

We had a lovely 4th of July celebration over here in Asia.
I hosted the party on the roof of my building, just in time for sunset. We thought maybe someone would start a fireworks show in light of the beautiful weather and great view, but alas, we only found stars once the sun went down. I did request that all attendees of the celebration dress in either red, white or blue and it was a truly patriotic sight, even though Americans were the minority. I was thankful for the participation.

I am also so thankful to live in a free country.

Rooftop party chatter.

Emily brought the best and most patriotic dessert. Berries are very hard to come by here so I was mighty excited to taste this traditional USA fare (jello is even on the bottom!).

Some snapshots of the patriotic dress.

The replacement for fireworks included the view of the lights from the city, and the stars from above.

Rajshahi.

What a place to see. This week was spent devleoping some Multilingual Education materials for the Kol and Koda ethnolinguistic groups, but it was also an opportunity for me to get out of Dhaka and see some other landscapes of Bangladesh. It was great to see this NGO in action as well as enjoy some countryside. Below are some photos from my week.

We arrived to have this statue of mangoes (pronounced "am" in Bangla) welcome us to the Rajshahi region. Later that week I was to buy six kilos of mangoes...

Some sweet and curious women I found working a little deeper inside the community. They were camera shy.

Some other women taking a break in their fields amidst that humid air. You simply cannot escape it, even if you leave Dhaka.

There are still many "jams" in Rajshahi, just more of the man-powered type than motorized.

Here are some shots of everyone hard at work, developing, critiquing, and celebrating the fact that Multilingual Education is being made possible for children of the Kol and Koda communities, by the Kol and Koda communities. No Coca-cola sponsorship out here.
It's truly inspiring.

Everyone who took part in some way this week.

On one of the final evenings, our team visited the Padma riverbank, one of the largest rivers in Bangladesh. Here, it is a place of leisure and labor, beauty and squalor all in one scene, as seems to be the way of Bangladesh.

The sunsets out this way were quiet and and also quite enjoyable.