All of my walking buddies had left the country. At first this depressed me because my daily walks were part of the reason that I could keep my sanity. If I didn’t have them then I would be on the same small campus everyday for what could seem like an eternity. I decided that the best solution to this problem would be to go on walks with kids. This proved to be the best and most entertaining way for me to keep my sanity!
One time we went out to this village and were having fun swinging from the roots of a banyan tree! Some of the roots are tied together at the end to create swings and so we spent some time just swinging around like monkeys. Finally we decided that it would be a good idea to walk around the village more. Before I knew it we were ambushed with about 20 villagers who thought I was some sort of doctor. One man came up to me with 6 fingers on one hand and asked me to cut off the extra one. I examined the 6th finger like I knew what I was doing (because the man made me). It was squishy and added character to the guy.. don’t know why he wanted to cut it off. I told the people over and over again that I was a teacher and not a doctor but it didn’t matter, they still wanted me to cut off fingers and fix peoples eyes! I finally got away telling them that our nurse would be back in 2 weeks and she could tell them more information. I haven’t gone back there since.
Another time I took Metali and Moni out to this tree. We went off the road onto this little path that went through the rice fields. We ended up by this big pond with a tree that stood alone looking rather majestic (and climbable). The first thing I did was run towards it with open arms and I started climbing up. Moni and Metali looked at me as if I was crazy for a minute and then they eagerly fought over who would get to climb up first. When we were done climbing and on our way down the tree a woman appeared from around a mound of dirt. She was walking her goat when she started yelling at us. I was mortified because I had probably offended her by climbing her god. I asked Metali to apologize to her as I scrambled down the tree but what she did next made me laugh hysterically. Since I was already up in the tree she wondered if I would knock some branches down for her goat to eat. Essentially she wanted me to tear down her god so that her goat could eat it. The whole situation was quite humorous. After I had gotten down she asked me why I didn’t fear the “tree” god. I tried to explain that I worship one God.. and it wasn’t a tree. I don’t think she understood but Metali did her best to explain what Adventist are. I hope we got her curious so that she’ll come visit Bangla Hope in the future.
There are so many fun and weird things that have happened on our adventures. We have caught frog and tadpoles, run through the rice paddies, swung from trees, caught run away cows and eaten fruit that tastes like wood. Each day that I go on these little adventures creates many bonding moments with the individual kids I take. When I’m back in America I think that these little adventures are going to be what I hold onto when I think about my kids back in Bangla Hope.
I can’t believe I have less than 2 weeks!
One time we went out to this village and were having fun swinging from the roots of a banyan tree! Some of the roots are tied together at the end to create swings and so we spent some time just swinging around like monkeys. Finally we decided that it would be a good idea to walk around the village more. Before I knew it we were ambushed with about 20 villagers who thought I was some sort of doctor. One man came up to me with 6 fingers on one hand and asked me to cut off the extra one. I examined the 6th finger like I knew what I was doing (because the man made me). It was squishy and added character to the guy.. don’t know why he wanted to cut it off. I told the people over and over again that I was a teacher and not a doctor but it didn’t matter, they still wanted me to cut off fingers and fix peoples eyes! I finally got away telling them that our nurse would be back in 2 weeks and she could tell them more information. I haven’t gone back there since.
Another time I took Metali and Moni out to this tree. We went off the road onto this little path that went through the rice fields. We ended up by this big pond with a tree that stood alone looking rather majestic (and climbable). The first thing I did was run towards it with open arms and I started climbing up. Moni and Metali looked at me as if I was crazy for a minute and then they eagerly fought over who would get to climb up first. When we were done climbing and on our way down the tree a woman appeared from around a mound of dirt. She was walking her goat when she started yelling at us. I was mortified because I had probably offended her by climbing her god. I asked Metali to apologize to her as I scrambled down the tree but what she did next made me laugh hysterically. Since I was already up in the tree she wondered if I would knock some branches down for her goat to eat. Essentially she wanted me to tear down her god so that her goat could eat it. The whole situation was quite humorous. After I had gotten down she asked me why I didn’t fear the “tree” god. I tried to explain that I worship one God.. and it wasn’t a tree. I don’t think she understood but Metali did her best to explain what Adventist are. I hope we got her curious so that she’ll come visit Bangla Hope in the future.
There are so many fun and weird things that have happened on our adventures. We have caught frog and tadpoles, run through the rice paddies, swung from trees, caught run away cows and eaten fruit that tastes like wood. Each day that I go on these little adventures creates many bonding moments with the individual kids I take. When I’m back in America I think that these little adventures are going to be what I hold onto when I think about my kids back in Bangla Hope.
I can’t believe I have less than 2 weeks!
"It was squishy and added character to the guy..." hahaha.
ReplyDeletehaha these amuse me! I can't wait to see you in person and hear so many more!
ReplyDelete