On the 10th of February we had a staff meeting in the office and we discussed our recent picnic in Gazipur. In the meeting one of the teachers, Popy, told that the street boy Shoeib had said to her; “Erik is an angel”. It made me very happy to hear that he had said it.
Valentine’s Day. In the afternoon, after work, I went with Nilufar and Kanta to Nilufar’s brothers’ office. They own a big cinema (with 1200+ seats) in the same street as our office. We met with her brothers and then Nilufar, I and Kanta watched a horror movie in the cinema. As it was in the afternoon there were very few people in the cinema. After the movie had finished I spoke to one of Nilufar’s brothers for quite a long, we had a great talk. He also gave us a tour of the cinema, it was very nice to see. In the evening when I got home I directly went out to a Chinese restaurant together with Ashu and his family. I had a great time and the food was very good.
I have downloaded an emulator so that I can play Neo Geo games, this is a game console that I really wanted to get when I was young, but I never got it, I don’t know why. I have been playing two games;”Samurai Shodown II” and “Metal Slug 2″.
Earlier this week, on Monday, I left our office in the afternoon with Kanta to go to the Kamlapur Railway Station. I supervised the classes for a short while and then we got invited to see several of the street children”s homes. Some are living with no roofs, some are having plastic over their head etc. Most of the students are living along the rail line and in the slums nearby the railway station. It was a great pleasure to meet parents and relatives of some our street children and see how they are living. One thing that amazes me is the happiness among many of the people living in the slums, even if they are facing miserable living conditions they are still smiling and happy. When my colleague and I left the slums both our street children and their family members were calling “come back and visit us again”. I really had a nice time visiting the homes.
The following day I also worked in the office and in the afternoon I went with two colleagues to Sadarghat and distributed sweaters and sheets (donated by IKEA) to four street girls. Two of them, Hasina and Laboni, are girls we have interviewed before. The girls were all happy and especially Hasina was showing it, she said to me; “you have beautiful eyes, like a cat”. Then we distributed sweaters and sheets to two other street girls, Lipy and Poly, in another place. Lipy we know from before, but Poly was a new face to us. Both of them are working as prostitutes so they were waiting for customers when we met them. While we were with them the winds started blowing and they were cool, so it felt real good giving them sweaters and sheets.
Two days ago was a national holiday, International Mother Language Day. I had been invited to go on a river cruise with Ashu”s family and their relatives. We left early in the morning to go to the Buriganga river to get on the ferry. It was a whole day’s trip, a total of 14 hours of excursion. On the ferry it was relatives from both Ashu’s mother’s and father’s side, between 250-300 relatives. It was really nice to get out of Dhaka, to feel a different kind of peace, as Dhaka is a very busy and hectic city. On the boat we socialized, ate, laughed, played games, listened to music etc. I spent most of the time with some of Ashu’s cousins, who I have met before. At one point when the ferry was docked to land, then we walked off and Ashu and I met some carriers who were carrying sand and we asked them how much they were making and they told us that they make 300 Bangladeshi Taka (equal to 4.40 USD) in one day, their working day starts at 5 am and finishes at 6 pm. The work is really hard. While we were sailing on the river, the majority of the people onboard the ship threw the trash into the river, this is something I can’t do, it hurts my heart to see and it reminded me on how small the world is to many people. This world is wonderful, but it’s also sad, I can only hope for more soul in the next generation. At the time when we arrived back in Dhaka in the evening there were 15-20 street boys who jumped onto our ferry and started collecting trash, which they later sell and earn some money for. Instead of just throwing all the trash in the river, give it to the street children and improve their daily life a little. I’m not an ace in mathematics, but this is simple maths to me. I and Ashu’s family gave two street boys our plastic bottles and some fruits and snacks, they were very happy.
Yesterday 22..8…
One Comment
crows for altid! x