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.

news from Ali, 30th Nov 2009

Dear all

Greetings from Bholas Children Protibondhi School.

The Boat sank down in the river Megna that is not
our Boat which we use to go to Dhaka. News today
it was 74 dead body is recovered and many
hundred is still missing. It was lot of people
fully crowded every where it was full even on
the roof and in down where they keep the goods and
things. People was in down couldn¹t get out
mainly children and woman is killed.

We observed the Eid-ul Azha children get very
good food, went to river Megna had been very
happy full day, at evening seen the TV about
more than half night. Some Children went home
to join with their relatives.

On 3rd December we are going to observe the
International disability day. We will be
together with other School children, we will
have relay for a kilometer, sports, singing,
Dance, prize distribution etc.

If it will be any possibility for you to join
any where with the disabled children do it
please, you can see us there.

Lots of love from your children.

Dinah and Anne's trip to Bhola, August 2009

Dinah's report on her and Anne's August 2009 visit to Bhola

Dear all,

Anne and I had a wonderful time. We were incredibly
lucky with the weather: it was never too hot although
Ali says the temperature has shot up since we left.
There was rain most days, often in the early morning –
serious rain, which made the roads interesting! It was
lovely sleeping on the third floor of the new building, which
is extremely comfortable and relatively cool among the tree tops.

I will, however, try to avoid Ramadan in the future. The
children were up half the night and asleep in the mornings!
What is more, Anne and I were twice foolish enough to eat
rather too much of the delicious 7.30 snacks when we had
guests, forgetting we would be served a large supper
some two hours later.

We now have 7 geese and, I think, 8 ducks in the boundary.
They are loving the puddles, of course, and its great to
see them swimming along behind a boat full of children!
Still two dogs, and the occasional rat but none on the
third floor... The new kitchen has been built and is waiting
for its equipment to be bought and installed.

We spent a lot of time on the new land at Valimia,
which is pretty wet at present but being brilliantly
cultivated. One day we bought and planted over
100 fruit trees, and Ali will soon be sowing the next
crops of vegetables. As you can see from the attached
photograph, Ali has kindly built a nice little bench for
visitors to sit and supervise the work!





















The children were all in great form and obviously
delighted to see us. There were about eight new
faces, and all the old friends came back to stay while
we were there, apart from poor little Sima with the leg.
Since her mother remarried she lives with her grandfather.
She seldom talks or laughs now, nor has she grown at all.
You who have been with us from the beginning will
remember Sima’s beaming face, even with her poor leg
in plaster or a metal brace. Ali and I went to see her
and suggested she come to live with us, but this would
mean loss of face for grandfather. We can only hope.

Fatima has almost finished her treatment and is
trying to find work as a beautician. She would like
to set up her own business in Bhola Town but is not
yet experienced enough, and there is no local work
for her. She could find a job in Dhaka but has nowhere
to stay…

We will explore the possibility of a new prosthetic
leg for Laily – kind friends have made suggestions
and offered financial help.

Ali arranged for Sima teacher and her cerebral daughter
Sonali to spend two residential weeks doing cp training.
Sima gave us all a brilliant presentation on all aspects of
caring for cerebral palsy children, and she has done
wonders with Sonali who is much stronger. We hope
she will teach Sahadut’s mother to do all the exercises
so that dear little boy will one day be running around.

















All the other children are well and there were no illnesses
or visits to the hospital. We had a moment of panic when
one of our school children, a six year old autistic girl called
Tumpa, walked out of her house early one morning. Ali had
a phone call from Tumpa’s stepmother – her father works
abroad and her mother, a slow learner, lives in Barisal.
He shot off to search on his motorcycle, and other staff
read out her description on the loud hailer. Fortunately
this led to somebody reporting they had spotted her in
a house after she had crossed saturated fields and
streams, and she can’t swim. We think she was trying
to reach her natural mother, she had taken some clothes
and two pairs of shoes. Ali brought her home and she
has lived with us ever since. She is a darling pretty little
girl who speaks to one very earnestly, remembers things
one has done or worn, but of course cannot actually
communicate, so we had been very frightened indeed.

Anne and I lent our iPods to the deaf children and a
remarkable number of them have hearing, at least
in one ear. Anne had a programme of Bengali words
and two children, Rabeya and Earuddin, could repeat
the words after they were spoken. Ali is going to test
everyone once he gets new batteries for his machine.
Please keep your fingers crossed we can do something
for these children.

















Finally, our Christmas card. I had told the children when
we arrived that there would be a competition for the
best picture which would be our Christmas card this year.
We had several practice classes, when they improved
dramatically, with or without using stencils. Then on the
final day, to everyone’s amazement, dear Tasnur produced
a really lovely drawing which is attached. Tasnur is very
special for me, since she was the first I met of Ali’s children.
Aged about 12 or 13, she has graduated from classes and
is now training in tailoring, and nobody had any idea she
could draw. We love the image (photo below) which shows our house,
our children, our dog and trees flowers and vegetables,
and with the sun shining on us all. I will be ordering
cards in due course, and if anyone is interested in buying
some I would love to hear from you. All proceeds, as usual,
to Bhola’s Children and I promise you they will be cheaper
to mail than last year’s card!

















Ali asked me to send you all love and thanks from him
and the children. We all thank you for your support,

Dinah

Dinah's Report, March 2009

Dear all,

It will not be easy to keep this account short; ­
every one of my twelve days with Ali and the
children was packed with different events and activities.

I hope you enjoyed Birgitta and Christer¹s account
of Ali¹s birthday celebrations. They are members
of the Swedish Support Group for Bhola, without
whose help it would have been difficult to buy
the property two years ago. It was good that
they could see our progress and be present at
the party. Ali¹s birthday was a wonderful
excuse to christen the new building, and
the following day we moved most of the girls
into two rooms on the first floor. Then Asma¹s
tailoring section transferred into a third room.
This became a wonderful oasis of calm and industry,
I often sat with them during the heat of the day
before lunch and never failed to be amazed by the
quality of their work, much of which I have to say
is now in my house ­ the presents at my farewell went
on and on, and I began to wonder whether Bhola
town sold suitcases.

Moving the tailoring section means Ali now has
his own bedroom, next to his office in the old
building, so we hope he now gets uninterrupted nights¹
sleep.

Everyone apart from Ali and I, although we did
join the first lunch, began taking their meals
in the new building. They sit on the floor and
Monira quickly made three trays on wheels so that
the girls serving could push the huge bowls round
the room.

During one of our rooftop meetings in the evenings,
Ali and I realized that a fire drill was needed now
that the children were living in the new building.
The first floor has access to the next-door roof,
but the second and top floors could be dangerous
with only one staircase. So the fire
brigade came to give us all much needed instruction.
Ali collected the 100 girls from the government
orphanage, along with their director and some
staff, and we had an extremely interesting talk
from six handsome firemen, followed by a very exciting
practical demonstration outside. Anne, we are
invited to the fire station in August!

The boundary is looking lovely, apart from the
building site in front of the construction.
Ali had waited till I arrived to make a decision
on taking down two large palm trees which gave
nothing except shade in the vegetable
garden. They boys and men had them down
before you could say knife and,
amazingly, dropped the huge trees in
such a way that not a single papaya
tree was damaged.

As you can see, the exterior of the
new building is finished and we all
think it looks beautiful. The ground
floor room is being used, although
food has to be carried a long way from
the existing kitchen, it will be a
while before the new kitchen is built.

















The girls and Asma's tailoring are
in residence in the undecorated first floor
which only has basic plumbing, and we will almost
certainly leave the boys in their present rooms until
next year, when we have enough money to do the
work on their floor. But everyone is pleased with
the accommodation they have, and I will be more
than happy to sleep on the floor of the wonderful
guest room at treetop level, though I suspect beds
will be taken up for us. The roof terrace is a
joy, especially at sunset, and we had a couple of
roof meetings up there,which the mosquitoes loved
when they found a large area of white flesh.

We have knocked a hole in the wall leading to
the land behind the boundary, and will be completing
earth filling of the ponds quite soon. When I left,
digging of the septic tank had begun and when I spoke
to Ali yesterday, he reported it was almost finished.

The other good news was that the existing well
has sufficient pressure to get water up to the
top floor of the new building, which will save us a lot
of money. We were so happy when we tested it and it worked!

The new land at Valimia is wonderful. There is a
mass of vegetables, pumpkins, bananas. We went
over several times to work and to harvest, and
had our picnic there. Ali had finally managed
to persuade a family living in our house there to
move out, so the boys had a great fun knocking down
the shack and partly rebuilding a new, stronger one.
The girls did their usual vegetable-picking, looking
beautiful and asking for their photographs.
The large island in the far field, in which we have
planted 500 pumpkins, was only accessible by a

















wobbly branch, which I spurned, so that afternoon
the boys built a wonderfully solid mud bridge and
we can now easily get to the pumpkin field. This
is where our group photographs were taken.
Picnics are great fun, I was having such a good
time I went over in the
first busload and came back in the second.
Muntu, who counted heads for me, said we got
30 into the microbus. And the generator!

I felt that classes were better run than in
November. We have a lovely new teacher, Masuma,
a 17 year old orphan who teaches well and has the
added advantage of being very musical so we are
not totally dependent on Rina for accompaniment.
The deaf children had their daily classes with Sima,
and everyone seemed to be working well although we
still need tuition for the blind. I met a nice young
man who will come every Friday afternoon to teach
art. I showed him the stencils I took with me, which
were a great success: small themed books with 6
stencils in each, the more able children soon
learned how to make a composition on one piece of
paper, and I am hoping to get our 2009 Christmas
card picture when I go back in August. I also bought
large simple Early Learning stencils which were great
for the less able and especially for the blind ­ Mamun
caught on very quickly and by the last
lesson, was drawing the outlines and filling them
in perfectly. My photograph is of his first attempt.

We have a lovely Hindu singing teacher who comes
two afternoons a week. I always sat in on these
classes and am endeavouring to learn the words
of a splendid song which I believe is about boats
and fishing. The teacher very sweetly wrote the
words down for me ­ in Bangla script! I will master it
next time, it certainly makes a change from
We Shall Overcome.

One lovely surprise, which Ali gave me when I
arrived, was that Sharmin and Shamoli were
coming back to Bhola with their 6-month old
son Shemanto. They arrived the same day as
us and it was great to see them again. Sharmin is
such a good worker, and Shamoli a wonderful
mother ­ Surma could learn from her! Little
Shemanto is adorable and of course enjoying
suddenly having 30 brothers and sisters.

One sadness, for me and for all of us who
visit regularly, is that little Sonia has gone home.
She has been there for nearly 3 years and her father
has returned from Dhaka. I don¹t think Bruna,
Jose or I will ever forget the stern, fully covered
mother who come to collect Sonia on our first open
day. After being dragged off kicking and screaming,
Sonia moved in with us the following day. She is
such a character and we will all miss her.
Happily our other baby, Haftsa, is still with us
although her father is also planning to come back.
We made a wonderful trip to Haftsa¹s house and met
her family, and on the same trip we visited
Fatima¹s brother¹s family.
Fatima has become one of my greatest friends
at Bhola, she is such a lovely girl and so incredibly
beautiful with a natural grace, it is heartbreaking
to think her body might remain so scarred.
She is going monthly to Dhaka for treatment
but Ali says the extent of her burns mean
plastic surgery is impossible. I have a
sub-group of Fatima supporters who have sent
photographs of her injuries to burn specialists
in Dhaka and India, if it is possible I think
they will finance skin grafts.

Money continues to be a problem. The cost
of living has rocketed once again, Ali
and I retreated most mornings to the top
floor and did our number-crunching, but in
the end the draft budget we sent back to the
trustees made grim reading. If anyone knows
of any company or charitable
trust which might be interested, please do
let us know. One of our donors has kindly
recommended Bhola¹s Children to the person
in his company responsible for charitable giving,
and I have a meeting with her soon. Any
other such recommendations would be so very welcome,
since we private individuals are all feeling
the pinch.

















It was a wonderful trip and two weeks are
certainly far better than one for me, giving
us all time to do everything we needed to do
and have time to just be together.
I think the high point each day for most
of us was teaching Mammi sign language and Bangla.
We had huge fun and I even managed to make a few
jokes. The low for me was the constant power cuts,
which meant no fans in the heat of the evening.
and the Islamic festival in the village, blaring
out heaven knows what over loudspeakers for three
evenings until late into the night. Otherwise, it
was pure joy and I miss them all.

Thank you for your continued support and interest,

Very best wishes,
Dinah