12/27/08

Dear Kathy, Bangladesh is coming to an end and I confess I will be relieved to be somewhere where everything is clean and I'm not afraid to get sick! I've been living on rice, cooked vege and peelable fruit and I would love to have spaghetti and tomato sauce! Yes, it sounds petty, but food is such a comfort in times of stress and this has been a very stressful two weeks. The people here are great, but the place, especially our last town Cox's Bazaar, has such grinding poverty that looking into the eyes of a sad six year old holding a younger sibling in her arms is just heart wrenching. I'm sure you know exactly what I mean. The workshops all went very well and we reached a total of about 90 teachers. Many were involved in election duties which meant they had to have training, and it was unfortunate that it coincided with our workshops.

The main reason for this email is that I want to tell you about my Christmas Day which was very different from that of last year.

I gave two workshops back to back and then in the late afternoon we went to a mission "school" in the countryside outside Cox's Bazaar. I put school in quotation marks since there is no building yet and the children are taught under the trees. Their ages range from 4-14 and they had all drawn me pictures to wish me a merry Christmas. They were sitting in rows, in their obviously best clothes, all clean and shining, holding flowers gathered from the surroundings. Their pictures hung from the trees and I admit tears came to my eyes at their welcome. My colleague Alak and two of his colleagues are spending their minimal money on setting up a school for these disadvantaged kids. Without them, these children would be illiterate and probably begging in the streets of the town as do so many. The town, which has 500,000 people, has so many shanties, so much dirt and so much garbage littering the magnificent 85 mile long sand beach that it is very disturbing to see. Hence my first comment about this being a stressful time. But I feel I've done some good; some more teachers will teach English better; more students will learn English and other subjects and stay in school, so maybe life will change just a little for the wonderful people here - because they are wonderful, courageous and so warm and friendly. That's it for now. Hope all have a pleasant New Year. Mary