A weekend with Firoj; The heart of Bangladesh! Part 2 Family Time

PART 2 ... Saturday (30/8/08) we went on the back roads to see Kamal (whose family call him Mostofa, we discovered on the way there!) and Masuda's families. It was just amazing country side. We saw many large trees which are used in furniture making and much jute being stripped and dried, as well as lots of bananas growing. We were so glad we went this way. Our driver did a great job even though he had never been this way before. At one stage a bridge was closed and the road forded the river. He watched a bus go through carefully before we entered the water. We bought 10 pineapples enroute, all of which were given to our various hosts!

Our first stop was Firoj's our family. We had a HUGE breakfast of rice, chicken curry and beef curry (and more!) and lots of fruit... all my favourites mango, banana and anarosh (pineapple). Firoj's family have been touch by grief as he brother died in a tragic road accident in 2006. He has 2 young children and a wife who are still an important part of Firoj's family.

When we arrived at Masuda's home we were escorted by family members on a motor bike and there was a huge welcome banner!

Both sets of parents were obviously missing their children, so it was great to be able to share photos of Masuda & Kamal and us in Australia. Kamal and Masuda followed our day closely by phone so we shared it with them too. Such a special family day!

The food was just amazing and the people so caring. I was so touched. It meant a lot that we as parents were sharing this day ...
knowing our daughters were having dinner together the next day.

We ate our lunch with both fathers, Firoj and our driver.


After we had eaten we rested while everyone else ate.
They then gave me a stunningly beautiful red Salwa Kamzee with beautiful gold beading and Stephen a goldy coloured shirt. We all changed (they put on their best saris etc) and we went for a walk to visit other family members. That was great fun. We saw Masuda fathers land
f
and chatted as we walked.
I talked to Roni and Tina who are in class 9 and Masuda's nieces/cousins
I gave them greetings from my class and youth group both of whom had asked me to say hello to children I meet.

There were MANY photos taken that day (as you can see from this Blog!) and I burned a CD for each family before we left. Everything we did was watched and it seemed EVERYONE wanted to meet us or at least check us out. Masuda's family in particular wanted us to promise to look after their daughter which we said we would do. Her father took both my hands and Stephen's hands and held them together and gave us a blessing. As a woman, men do NOT touch me here even to shake hand so to have this loving old father take my hands in this way was very special. They pray for Masuda and Kamal often and we said we too prayed for them. We have been invited to return, in the true Bangla way, which we would like to do. We have a busy schedule and Firoj (our tour guide and the main English speaker in the family) is leaving for Japan very soon so we do not know if it will be possible.

Jeanette