Monday, December 16, 2013

Freda's first visit to Bangladesh

My first impressions of Bangladesh are of a busy, frantic industrious and wonderful country. To travel through Dhaka is taking your life in your hands as your little 3-wheel car competes with pedal rickshaws, buses, smart motorcars and very ancient buses. The purpose of my trip was to visit Bhola’s Children’s and it is exactly as Dinah says - it is a very special place. Because Dinah broke a bone in her foot two weeks before we were due to travel there together, I went with Sandy and then spent some time alone with Ali and the children. The children are so happy, busy, independent and very friendly. There are such a happy family supporting each other, just the way it was planned by Ali, the Founder. Ali has a superb way with the children, they will be loud and boisterous one minute and a look and sign from Ali and they are as quiet as mice. At the moment they are deaf, mentally retarded and children with cerebral palsy (CP) living in the home and all are attending the local school for a couple of hours each day. They get extra tuition in the home, the deaf have sign and lip reading classes and the CP children have physiotherapy according to their needs. The children are so eager to communicate and it is so much easier to learn sign language than Bangla! Many of the older children from the home have now got jobs in Dhaka and are leading independent lives. These are children who were discarded by their families as being useless. It is thanks to the hard work of Ali and his team, and of course the support of our many donors, that these children are now independent and send money back to Ali to save for their future. Sadly the political situation was no better and our plans to get to and from Bhola had to be changed to fit in with the hartals (the political strikes). On the island we just stayed within the Boundary (the home) and we were very safe from trouble. We did venture out on a couple of occasions. We walked part of the way to Valumia, to visit the farm where some of the crops had been planted, the rest had to wait until the water dried up after the rainy season. It is wonderful the way the home grows much of its own food. I was impressed by Ali’s planning, the way he watches the weather in the Himalayas and northern India and when heavy rains are predicated, he knows there will be flooding in Bangladesh and the rice and potato prices will increase. So he immediately buys in stores cheaply to feed his large family. I was very impressed with the very busy tailoring department run by Asma. During the time we were there she made over 40 outfits, one for each of the children. It is a Muslim tradition that everyone gets a set of new clothes at the celebration of Eid-ul Fitr. Many of the older girls learn dressmaking skills and even the blind girls learn embroidery with the help of glue, which outlines the pattern. Thanks to the wonderful support for a recent appeal to buy a battery-powered vehicle, Ali bought this magnificent car. It will be so useful to transport the children and collect shopping. The battery can be charged overnight in the boundary. Soon after we arrived Ali, Sandy and I set off into town to collect it but, in true Bangla fashion, the battery had not been charged ! After a long wait standing at the side of the road, Ali put Sandy and me into a bicycle rickshaw and eventually drove our car home. Unfortunately, due to the hartals, I myself wasn’t able to ride in it but Ali reports they have driven it to Valumia as well as Bhola town, - full of children, needless to say! Many thanks to all those who financed the rickshaw on which all your names have been painted.

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