Oh, the places you’ll go!!  Sitting on the plane headed to Istanbul and ending in Dubrovnik, Croatia. Life continues to amaze me.  Yesterday was our last full day in Bangladesh.  We awoke in Khulna, had breakfast, drove about two hours to Jessore, caught a short hop flight, and ended back in Dhaka again.  Just coming out the door of the airport, the otherness of this place struck me.  Bright green easy bikes, rickshaws, cabs, buses, and our faithful World Vision van all crowded together, fetching passengers.  Thick warm, humid air – crowds of brown skinned people, the women looking like flowers – chattering voices and honking horns vying for attention.  I am here – in Bangladesh. How is this so?  My life on our little farm is very far away.  I am here and that is what matters.

After we arrived back in Dhaka, we checked into the hotel and then dove into a sumptuous buffet lunch.  Given our fairly spartan four night stay in Khulna, with the repetitiveness of the food, lunch was a delight!  I hesitate to even mention this, as it is such a First World issue, but we were all grateful for the variety and flavor.  Much of the food here is quite spicy and my body absolutely rejects all spice. I hate that as I feel like a picky American, but my watering eyes and burning mouth are not a pretty picture!  Wimp!  

The rest of the afternoon was unscheduled (!) so some of the group headed out to shop a bit more.  A friend and I remained back at the hotel, and after doing a little repacking and organizing, met for coffee and cookies at a little shop in the lobby.  The young man who served us was very charming and knew it. So funny. Flatter the old ladies and they will be sooo grateful!  A very nice break.  The shoppers returned and 3 of us set off with George to visit an old Mogul fort in another part of the city.  George is always so eager to please and rather optimistically thought we could make it there and back for our 6:30 supper.  Friday is the Muslim holy day here so traffic would be lighter – in theory anyway!  

The streets soon filled with huge buses, bicycles, motorbikes and rickshaws.  Lanes – what lanes?  It’s every vehicle for itself as they dart into the tiniest opening.  Fractions of inches often separate one from another.  Then pedestrians cross in the midst of all this, confident that they will not be hit.  No one was!  Because the traffic was moving, albeit quite slowly, George told us this was light traffic!  Some intersections have lights but I still have no idea what they mean. We dashed through red lights and sat at green ones. Then we hit heavy traffic which means no movement for a good while.  Sensory overload but in an absorbing and often very funny way.  The longer the drive, the sillier it got.

As we approached the area of the fort, the roads began to narrow back to their premodern width – often barely wide enough for the van and a rickshaw.  We inched along between the little stores and shops, people everywhere.  I would have loved to walk these streets as they had some charm and personality, unlike so much of the city.  Unfortunately, not today. 

Rain had been coming down lightly – the first of the trip.  And the daylight was fading as we finally approached the fort.  After inching up to the gate, we hopped out only to be told that the fort was on winter hours and had closed half an hour before.  George felt so badly, but not us.  The drive had been so crazy, we’d had our adventure.

We were able to walk along a fenced path and see the fort/museum and the lovely grounds in the dusk for a few brief minutes.  Back to the van and repeat the journey in reverse.  We had just set out and happened to look behind us.  There, amidst all the rickshaws and people was a horse with rider!  Here, in this insanely packed and busy city a horse was trotting behind us!
Despite the still crazy traffic, we were only half an hour late for dinner.

 

Fred Wittevan, the country director, ate with us.  He had also joined us on Sunday midday and he has so much information to share and great stories.  Poor guy barely gets a chance to eat!
Bed time for Sandy and me but the others were leaving the hotel at 10:30.  We said goodbye and gratefully crawled into bed for a few hours.  Up at 3:30 and off to the airport and on our way.  Saying goodbye to George is always hard, but I am always grateful that I know him.  He is an incredibly rare person – truly good and Christlike.

And now I’m flying over Bombay, Delhi, Kathmandu.  After a layover in Istanbul, we are headed to Croatia.  All good gifts.

(The title comes from a shared joke with George.  Every now and then, he would stop me and ask, “Jill, where are you?” and smile at me.  It came from my sense of not believing I was there on my first trip.  I loved that he remembered and kept it up!)