Discussion group

The venue was James Karmoker's church in Dhaka. Knew James from time he spent with Cornerstone in Australia. He took me out to one of the three or four KFC's in Dhaka for an authentic Bangladeshi experience. The place was packed. He was just back from a conference in South Korea- Paul Yongi Cho's church with 800 000 members. There's not a huge amount more Christians in all of Bangladesh (Probably a bit over a million).

Dhaka seminar

Some of the students from the Dhaka seminar. They did well- we went on a bit of talk marathon, four talks with smallish breaks for morning tea and discussion in between. Our theme verse on the impressive banner was..For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light- from Luke 16. We had 37 students there from the Dhaka Leadership Training Program. Henry works part time for this NGO iniative. He's involved in a number of seminars each year and travels down once a month to lead cell groups.

Giving the Groom a pasting

All the people arrive- the women in red and orange Sari's. The hired band let their presence be powerfully known periodically. There were drums, trumpets and other whiny tootly things. Everything was played frenetically at bagpipe volume. The brides family comes with the clothes that the Groom has to wear. Rafi was able to enter the fray shortly after, accompanied by the band going off and an entourage of male friends and family. I got whisked into this on account of my special headwear. Rafi then sat on a decorated stage on a little raised board Henry had painted the day before- and everyone there from the most important family down to friends, proceeds to paste freshly ground tumeric all over his face. Many also feed him a bit of fruit after pasting him. Each is called out before they come out and their relation to the groom acknowledged. I was not forgotten though I had first met Rafi two or three days before.

Bring on the Gai Halud

Very slimming the Bangladeshi long shirt

Getting into my Gai Halud gear

Gai Halud is a celebration (Hindu in origin) a few days before the wedding. There is one each for the bride and groom. We stayed at Henry's cousins' place in Savar. Henry was the best man for his cousin Rafi's wedding. The day before we painted a lot of pots for Gai Halud decorations.

Banged up bus

The country is full of them- to see a bus without a significant scrape is a rarity, and most have scrapes, scratches and dings all over them. Cracked windscreens are very common as well.

cow carnage

A lot of cows go to meet their maker at Eid. Walked over a lot of blood in the streets. Henry was saying a few days after it really reeks. Some areas had piles of skins over a metre high.

On the street with an English Evangelist

This is Lindsay from England. Has carried a cross through about 14 countries, for around two week stints I think. He was teaching at the YWAM base and happy asked him to spend an hour with us. Interesting experience- here he was acting out how Jesus came to be the ultimate sacrifice- I was God the Father. Didn't know if he was crossing cultural appropriate lines for half of it- but the kids seemed to enjoy it. Elder Muslims came and watched on with crossed arms.

Unfriendly fences

Very common- nails or bits of glass embedded in the top of fences.
This is outside one of YWAM's Dhaka training centres. Henry's cousin, Happy, runs the centre.

Spice man

Some good smells came from his stall.

Savar Bazaar

On the outskirts of Dhaka. Full of dust, smells, beeping horns and people.

The Ganges

From the Ferry toilet. Bangladeshis call the river the Pod a- the Indian's call it the Gonga- don't know why we call it the Ganges. Every ferry and boat coming the other way was packed. Dhaka empties for the Muslim Eid festival, as people go back to their villages. So the Bedlam level (already high) goes up a few notches on all the roads coming out of Dhaka. Even though we were going the other way, the trip took us 5 and half hours instead of the normal 3 to 3 and a half.
The Ganges was wide and murky with a hazy sky. The bus drove straight onto the ferry.

Jo and Henry

In the back of a three wheeled e car. They've just been introduced to Faridpur this year. Battery powered electric vehicles- Chinese made.

Fishing

Amazing bamboo contraption, when the fisherman felt there was something in the net, he'd stand on the end of the two bamboo poles the net was attached to and that would bring the net out of the water as he descended down to water level. He could then get the fish and put it in his boat. Looked very impressive the whole structure coming out of the water. The river was netted to channel fish into this main net.

Henry's backyard

In Faridpur at Bangladesh's equivalent of Henry Lawson's place. Henry described Faridpur to me as a village, then told me it had about a million people. Much of it does feel like a village though- coconut palms and mahogany trees all over the place, lots of chickens cows and goats, fishing going on in the river.

I don't like cricket

A bad shot - but it illustrates a very Bangladeshi (and Indian) passion. Cricket invokes at least the same level of passion as Aussie rules in Victoria. As soon as people found out I came from Australia - their faces would light up or they'd nod and knowingly say- ah Ricky Ponting. At one stage Glen Mcgrath.

Bus from bus

On the way to the border. Many amazing looking vehicles from the middle of last century driving around. All the taxi's look like yellow morris's from the 1950's.
I was glad our taxi's brakes seemed to be up to last last minute braking moves. They don't even bother with the pretence of lines on the road here. It's all about gaps and driver positive thinking about their vehicle fitting. The scrapes and dings on the majority of vehicles is testimony to their soaring idealism. Horn use is ubiquitous and beats any other country we've been in hands down.

Downtown Kolkata

Knew I'd moved into a different atmosphere as soon as I got in the plane at Kuala Lumpur. The hostess had to announce 20 times for people to please sit in their assigned seats. There was then a period where hostesses and hosts had to get people who had sat in the wrong seats to move. The noise level was two or three times as loud as what it usually is in other flights- and the whole process took two or three times as long. It was though chaos had entered the plane and the Malaysian crew had to do their best to accommodate it. Kolkata and Bangladesh often had that edge of chaos, or slightly on the other side, feel to me.

Bay of Bengal

Matches the background a bit- another artistic shot.

Sweety or Mr Peanut

A difficult choice. I think Sweety was white bread with sugar on top. I opted for ham and cheese- like no other ham I've ever had. In KL after Tess had flown back to Melbourne and I was waiting to fly to Calcutta (Kolkata).

old church

St Pauls- from the 1650's. Bit of a classic coming from Australia seeing buildings almost twice as old as NSW settlement.
Took most of our photos here on Tess's parents camera which I don't have access to. Melaka a place people come from all over to eat- Baba Nonya cuisine- a mixture of a number of influences.

Melaka

9 to 10 hour bus trip down to Melaka (had a three to four hour detour to Ipoh).
This is a copy of a Portugese ship. Melaka is a fascinating place- was a capital of Malaysia in the 1400's I think. Then the Portugese came in the 1500's, followed by the Dutch and then the British. Many of the Dutch buildings are still intact. Deepavali festival (festival of lights) happening when we arrived- no room at the inn- walked around for over an hour and tried at least 14 places, but everywhere full. Felt a bit of empathy of Mary and Joseph. Tess pretty tired by the end of it.

Tricky flowers

On the beach one morning- this photo shows my artistic sensibilities.

Resident Hornbills

At the hotel we were staying at.

My fair maiden of choice..

..for deserted Malaysian beaches. Bit of a classic to get this beach pretty much to ourselves- the beaches on either side where very popular and not as scenic. Flat sea as its in the Malaccan straits.

Pangkor Island

We ruled the road on a hired motor scooter for a day. Pangkor Island is about 3 hours north of Kuala Lumpur. A place where Malaysians go to holiday rather than westerners as a rule.

Three weeks back

Just been able to download some of the photos from Kylie's camera she found in the bush. A hearty goodbye handshake in Kuala Lumpur before Kyle headed home.

This bloke looks like he's ready for fun day

The court that Henry built

Indispensable part of any seminar program

Pre dinner handwashing

Muni looking like she would be a great public face for the next public health campaign on handwashing- it looks fun doesn't it? I've been getting used to eating with my hands- have been observed eating a few times and laughed at because of how messy I am.

Some of the fellas

Expert panel

Second day. We looked at goodness vs niceness, then the under utilisation of the Holy Spirit's enablement (not quite in those words). Here we (Henry, Jo and I) are telling stories from some of the things we learnt on Cornerstone Mission teams. We then answered questions from the students. In the background is the banner (I'm not sure if you can have a seminar without one) with the Great Commission written in Bangla.

Slightly fuzzy communication team

Didn't realize this was out of focus looking at the thumbnails. Most of the time our focus was pretty good in delivering the talks. But every so often your mind wanders. There was a couple of times when Henry stopped translating and I had no idea where I was going next. The first day the Pastor at Henry's church spoke on who Jesus is, Then I talked on where Jesus is going, and after afternoon tea, the discipleship imperative. There were 33 students aged from 14 to 27, with most around 20.

The fascination of journal writing

Almost looks like a staged sensai with his disciples moment this. At the Seminars we ran for local Faridpur youth and for young people from a rural satellite church. I was writing in my journal after tea and began to attract quite a crowd. They told me my writing was very neat which is a great juxtaposition with my English teachers opinion. She loved the word juxtaposition. Whenever there were any bad handwriting jokes to be made (and you may be surprised how many jokes a skilled practicioner can find in this area) - I was the example.

Kolkota restaurant profundity

Haven't been able to download or upload or whatever, photos for awhile- but read this on the menu of the little restaurant I ate at in Kolkota tonight.
"One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, If one has not dined well."

Hitler has only got one ball

This bloke saw us coming along the bridge and started playing Waltzing Matilda- he then launched into a hearty rendition of Hitler has only got one ball.

Bridge on the River Kwai

Foray into Burma

about a metre in at the Three Pagoda Pass. Good to see this after reading Miracle on the River Kwai. There were 200 000 Asian labourers used on the Thai- Burma railway- 80 000 died- 13000 Australian prisoners of war- at least 2000 died.

Breakfast

Eating sticky rice out of the bamboo it was cooked in.

last morning photo

(I'm in the middle)

Takwa

Dee's brother performing an original composition. Will have to try and get the words at some stage- sounded very amusing the bit Dee translated for us.

On the catwalk

On the final night concert- we had some very adept models strutting their stuff.

Coconut shot put

A few of our coconuts were a bit off- and one was particularly off- very rank.

More Steeplechase

Steeplechase

The heart is willing and the steed large

Obama displaying the sort of spirit typical of the Sangkla Buri Olympics.
He managed to stay on mostly- but one of his fellow competitors had a solid prang.

Sangkla Buri Olympics

Wheel Barrow Race

Painting demonstration

This was a very popular activity.

Raft racing

Dinner

Neighbours dogs beware- I think we ate two or three in our time here.

Raft making

With banana trunks, bits of bamboo and string. They worked very efficiently.