Bruna and Dinah walk for Bhola’s Children: 112 kms
to Santiago de Compostela

















Last October, Bruna and Dinah decided to walk the
last stretch of the Camino de Santiago, to raise money
for our new workshop and tailoring room.

Unfortunately Bruna slipped on the ice before Christmas
and broke her ankle. The following day, Dinah did the
same but only broke her wrist. We hoped that Bruna’s
ankle, by some miracle and much help from Swiss doctors,
would recover and enable her to walk the whole way,
rather than resort to taxis. As you will see from her account,
she made it – as did Dinah, for whom it was the second time
but whose legs, even though four years older, behaved
impeccably.

We knew we had the good wishes of Ali and the children
every step of the way.

Bruna and Dinah walk for Bhola’s Children: 112 kms
to Santiago de Compostela

Last October, Bruna and Dinah decided to walk the
last stretch of the Camino de Santiago, to raise money
for our new workshop and tailoring room.

Unfortunately Bruna slipped on the ice before Christmas
and broke her ankle. The following day, Dinah did the
same but only broke her wrist. We hoped that Bruna’s
ankle, by some miracle and much help from Swiss doctors,
would recover and enable her to walk the whole way,
rather than resort to taxis. As you will see from her account,
she made it – as did Dinah, for whom it was the second time
but whose legs, even though four years older, behaved
impeccably.

We knew we had the good wishes of Ali and the children
every step of the way.

Feb/March 2010 Photos from Bhola

Outside the Circus

The Big Farewell

Luckily Dinah remembered her gardening gloves!

Dinah driving the tractor!

First Sale of Valumia Vegetables!

New Children with their new clothes

Dinah's Trip to Bhola

Dear all,

I got back last weekend from my seventh and most enjoyable visit to our children. Bhola Garden really has become a second home for me, and I enjoyed every moment of my time there – even when we had power cuts and there was no water on the third floor!

The weather could not have been better – hot sunny days and relatively cool nights. All the children were happy and healthy, apart from a couple who had been sent home to nurse chicken pox. The last thing Ali needs is an epidemic!

I was delighted to see seven children new since my last visit. Four of them are very young, which fits in with Ali’s plans to keep the age level down. Three are deaf, one has downs syndrome, one suffers from cerebral palsy, one is a slow learner; and dear little Hasnur is partially sighted. Ali hopes to take her to a specialist in Dhaka, in the hope of getting treatment. The new children had new clothes, material chosen by yours truly on an entertaining, three-to-a-rickshaw shopping expedition with Asma and Rozina, and made in her usual quick time by Asma and her helpers. My photograph shows them just after presentation, plus Rozina who was given a new dress to replace one destroyed by poor little Khadija…

Work at Valumia continues to keep us all occupied. Several of the men and boys worked there most days alongside Ali’s nephew Rabi and a team of daily labour, digging out the moat round the lower field so that it can be filled with water for fish. We, the gentler sex, were put in charge of clearing vegetation from the bank and I was pleased to have remembered my gardening gloves. Plenty of our own fruit and vegetables were on the menu, and we had the great excitement of taking our first crop of tomatoes, cabbages and eggplants to the wholesaler who sold them all without taking commission. Ali has so many loyal friends and supporters in the town.

A happy time was had by all last Sunday morning, when we caught fish in our pond by the simple means of taking out all the water and picking the fish out of the mud. Needless to say, I continued to be a vegetarian!

The other great excitement was delivery of the trailer. It is now painted, yellow and red so as to be truly visible. I had my doubts about Ali’s driving skills, especially reversing in our small space, but was delighted to hear on Monday that he had successfully driven it, and all the children, to Valumia to collect firewood. So now Ali can add tractor-and-trailer driving to his many other skills.

We now have five blind or partially sighted children. Ali and I visited Razia’s father, our erstwhile nightwatchman who always slept on the job, and persuaded him to let her come home to us, which made us all happy. We all worry about lack of any teaching for the blind. We can’t afford a qualified teacher, I tried very hard to inspire our present teachers to involve them in classes. The two sets of dominos were a great success, all the blind children used them to add up numbers and it was good for my Bangla number skills too. I can now go past baro, twelve! I will be searching for more simple games for our blind children before my next visit. They all love using my iPod, and I wonder if anybody can spare us an old one no longer in use after an update? Ali could record books on them.

Ali’s birthday, the second he has celebrated in his 57 years, was an occasion for a great party with wonderful singing and dancing, icecream eaten in the fingers (!) and a three-tiered birthday cake. The following evening, my last, we took everyone to the circus – a first for the children. Ali was worried about old Mammi sitting on a hard, narrow plank for several hours but in fact I thoroughly enjoyed it, loved seeing the children’s joy, and was twice visited from beneath the tiered seating by the clowns – one very short and one tall – asking if I was enjoying their antics.

This Friday 12th March is the third anniversary of Bhola’s Children registration as a charity. It is hard to believe how much we have achieved in these three years and it is all due to you. Ali asks me to send messages of love and thanks from him and from our staff and children. I of course add my own heartfelt thanks to you all,

Dinah

News from Bhola, January 2010

Dear all,

Winter has ended in Bangladesh, and spring
has arrived with some good news.

Our lovely Shathi has married Dipok.
Shathi is a deaf Hindu girl whom we all love.
Dipok is also Hindu and has worked in the
boundary for over a year, running the metal
workshop. Although he is a few years older
than Shathi, we are delighted with the marriage.
He will look after her very well and, of course,
is proficient in sign language. They are both
living in the boundary and I am longing to see
them when I arrive next month.


















We have bought a tractor and you can see Montu
ploughing the lower field at Valumia ready for sowing.
The other photograph shows the upper field full of
delicious vegetables which I am looking forward to
sampling.






























Arm out of plaster, all ready to go and help on Bhola!

Ali and the children send you their love and
thanks for making so many things possible,

And so do we all at Bhola’s Children

Dinah

Anne's December 2009 visit to Bhola

Bhola, January 2010
We arrived en masse into Bhola Garden on the 2nd
January: Ali, myself and seven members of a Swedish
family who had lived and worked at the local training
centre, now sadly defunct, more than 15 years ago.
In touch with Ali ever since, for the adults at least it
was a homecoming and they were delighted to meet
Bhola’s Children, and the children to meet all of them.
This, followed by two Japanese guests, friends of the
local chair of Trustees, meant the celebrations lasted
several days.

In the midst of one of the coldest winters recorded in
Bangladesh, the children shivering in hats and
cardigans at 14 degrees Celsius, coughs and colds
not enough to dampen their enthusiasm, the
welcome for all of us was as warm as ever, and the
grounds, including the new house, looked pristine.

Early on in the week saw the switching on of a solar
panel, fixed neatly to the roof of the new building, that
ensures one room on each floor now has light during
the many, many electricity blackouts. In addition, with
the material available now, there has been a huge effort
in the workshop to make beds for all the children.
Within a couple of weeks, nobody should be sleeping
on mats on the floor any more.

Even in the few months since August, there are
significant changes as new children have moved
in and others have graduated to the next step in
their life experiences and training. Monira, the deaf
and dumb carpenter, has left to live with family
and to work in Dhaka, and Rabia, another deaf
girl, has gone to be married. Coming up behind
them, Shati and Fatima, again both deaf, have
finished school and are going into Bhola town to
learn more advanced tailoring. For Shati too,
there are tentative plans of marriage. Eyaruddin
and Sahid, the two very talented deaf boys
who graduated from the classroom in the
summer and have been working in the fields
and in the boundary since, have just started
a 3 month programme at agricultural college
20km away. This will enable them both to take
more responsibility for our land in Valumia,
to help train others how to make the most
of the many land resources in the Bhola area.
As Ali says, nobody with a little land and a
little knowledge should ever go hungry.

Sunday was picnic day in Valumia, where
there is an abundance of vegetables, grown
in careful rotation to ensure constant variety,
from cauliflower to green beans, broccoli to
sweetcorn, to the staples of lal shack, a red
leafy local vegetable, and lentils for dhal.
The pond is teeming with fish too, best caught
by hand whilst wallowing knee-deep in the mud,
avoiding the bite of the sting-ray that causes a
nasty, if temporary paralysis! Ali hopes to purchase
a labour-saving tractor and trailor, funds permitting,
before the end of this dry season to aid the
cultivation further.

Sofia and Rosina, both fully blind, continue to
entertain with their considerable musical skills
singing with the harmonium and keyboard, and
dancing classes remain enthusiastically attended.
Hafsa, Sonia, and Hassan, so long the little ones,
are now seniors in the classroom, doing very well
in their studies. Their places have been taken by
Farhana and Sharmin, two small deaf girls and
Rakib, with cerebral palsy, all of whom are still
settling in. There is a constant stream of enquiries
too; at least half a dozen parents arrived over
the course of the week, their children suffering
conditions from rickets to cleft palates, from
deafness to autism, not to mention the various
adults brought in horizontal and often in plaster,
looking for crutches and other assistive devices to
ease various breaks and strains!

Outside the boundary, the big news is the arrival,
this week of the gas pipes which will supply the area.
The recently built gas plant has been dormant whilst
the government got itself together, and suddenly
the work has started: not only are the main roads
being dug up for tunnels, the pipes are actually
being fitted at an enormous speed. For Bhola Garden,
this will mean that the new kitchen can be put fully
into commission and reduce the need for dangerous
of open fires or the very expensive bottled gas
sometimes employed.

Ali, of course, continues to work far too hard,
but his dedication and encouragement are invaluable.
With the young adults manning the workshop, the
tailoring section and the cooking, and with Ronazid
as administrator, one of the constant anxieties
remains over Ali’s succession, and more immediately,
the need for an experienced and mature female
member of staff to work generally alongside him.
Ali is currently in negotiation with a woman he
thinks is right for the job, but it’s a long and difficult
process... watch this space! And also, for news of
the next huge project, the building of a new and
productive workshop that should generate income
once we raise the £100,000 to set it all up.
All fundraising ideas gratefully received!
As always, it was a wonderful visit, far too
short with the arrival of the seaplane, an outing
in itself for the children, taking me back to Dhaka.
Bhola’s Children send a ‘big hug and many, many
thanks’ to all the donors and supporters out there:
‘don’t forget your children’ Ali says, ‘come and visit us,
please.’ Er, just maybe not all at the same time!!

Anne Hamilton

Bruna's November 2009 visit to Bhola with Holger, Jelena and Isabella

Dhaka was a cultural shock for my new companions:
the traffic and noise, impossible to believe and describe!;
the dirt and the heavy polluted atmosphere, incredible!;
the millions of men around the streets doing nothing,
shocking!; being always surrounded and stared at as
rare 'extraterrestials' disturbing and surprising!. But
with the help and guidance of very happy and smiling
Ali, Shamin (student/teacher in our home) and
Sumon (Ali's son) we all got involved in the 'Bangladeshy
way' and went around Dhaka to buy the special items
for the newly built kitchen in Bhola ('European' cooker,
extractor, water-heaters, etc) and the new computers,
printer, projector, etc. with money donated from
Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany.

We finally arrived at Bholas Children Protibondi
School where we were welcomed by all the
children and staff. I was worried my new
companions were not comfortable enough, I
was worried that they would find it difficult to
be surrounded by so many deaf-dumb children
eager to talk, waving their hands so fast, making
funny faces; being always followed and touched;
worried by the lack and confused verbal communication
because the level of English is still very poor in our
home; I was worried about the same type of food
everyday; about the continuous power cuts and
'no connection' that made it difficult to use the
computer to keep the 'web journal' of our adventure.

But Bholas Children Protibondi School is a real
magic place. Within two days we all seemed to
be in such a natural harmony all together, Jelena
kept filming the everyday life and activities
surrounded by many fans and eager 'actors';
Holger became immediately very popular among
the girls. Isabella at the beginning found it hard to
relate to so many 'complicated' children, but very
soon she was playing with them, communicating
in sign language, laughing, teaching them games,
rowing the boat on the pond.

Our time in Bhola kept flowing like a smooth
river, full of activities, excitement and fun sharing
with the children school lessons, singing and
playing the keyboard with Rozina and Sofia;
swimming and playing water polo in the pond,
with Ali the referee blowing the whistle and
waving signs language. The last day Mammi
Bruna went in the water too to the delight of all!

One of the most beautiful days we had was
when we all went to Valimia, the land we bought
last year where we cultivate most of the
vegetables and fruits, teaching the children
agricultural skills for their future. In Valimia
we have also a big canal and pond where we
fish. It was really emotional to see our boys
and girls swimming together, fishing together,
throwing their nets and then slowly pulling it at
one time the girls catching the bigger fish! While
we were watching them being so happy together,
so excited, so free, I explained to Holger, Jelena
and Isabella about the uniqueness of our project.
In a Muslim country, where there is always a
division of gender and capabilities, in our beautiful
land and home, our children whatever is their
disability and gender are all together, they play
together, they work together, they learn together,
they fish together, they cook together, they enjoy
together, they really 'live' together, appreciating
anything we give them, any amount of time we
spend with them. They are genuinely and infectiously
happy.

Jelena has taken hours of film of our visit there. She
will obviously edit it preparing a version for the website,
planning also to make a DVD that we would like to give
to friends so that they can experience, at least virtually,
the wonderful atmosphere and achievements we have all
contributed to this special project, hoping to inspire some
of them to go to Bhola in the near future.