A farewell dinner

As this is the boy's last weekend in Dhaka, we told them they could invite some friends and have a farewell dinner.  Well, I am sitting in BBQ (they chose the venue despite many attempts to sway their opinion by Billie Jo) and in a small room there sits 20 kids, lots of laughs, yells of joy, and just an honest good time.  This is the best and the hardest part of our life.  At the end of every school year someone leaves. This time it is us that is leaving. Next year it will be someone else. Next year we will be at our new school and a new family will take our place here in Dhaka. It's the cycle of international teaching.

 It doesn't make it any easier knowing this truth. The goodbyes are still teary and difficult. And friendships made are deep and true. Maybe we will avoid the odd silence tonight when it's time to go, but I doubt it. For now though, they are exactly as they should be...without a care in the world about what is happening out side that room. This is our life and I wouldn't change it for anything.

Closing this chapter

So, Gabe & Sam will be leaving Dhaka this weekend to fly home for their summer sports.  That being the case, this week has been a wild blur.  They leave in four days!  Sam has his MS basketball tournament this weekend and we promised the boys we would host a dinner/gathering for them and their friends so they can all say their goodbyes and have one last hangout.  This is always the hardest part.

We have all made good friends here and will miss them truly.  Dhaka has been a wild, crazy, fun, short ride but one that was 100% memorable.  Where are we going?  We are headed to beautiful Brazil to work at the Graded School Sao Paulo!!!  I was looking to transition from the classroom to admin and sent Rich my paperwork for his professional review.  His response was "I have a math and counseling job for you and Billie Jo."  That was totally not expected and to be honest, we turned it down at first.  Then we thought about it more wisely and accepted the positions, and we are sooo glad we did.  The next chapter in our lives will be coming to you from South America and the wonders of Brazil.

Before we head out however, we have a ton of things to close out here in Dhaka.  Shipping, minimizing our stuff to ship, finding a new family for our bearer, saying goodbye to friends, and oh yeah, we still have to finish the school year.  HA!  This is our life now, and we would not change it for the world.  The four of us being able to travel the world, make new friends, see amazing sights, live in places we only saw on TV back home, be part of different cultures simply by living in the middle of them, work with students from around the world (literally), go on school trips to new countries, the list is endless.  Still, our only regret is not listening to our friends Tracy & Ian and not doing this sooner.

Dhaka, you are a compact, wild, very interesting city in a beautiful country (Bangladesh) that has many more beauties than we were able to see in our short time here.  We leave you with many great friends to look after.  Waalaikum Assalaam.

Back Again!

Hey there everyone!  Sorry, trying to keep this blog updated is more than a notion...much easier to just post on Facebook or Twitter.  ;)  Anyway, I know some of you still appreciate checking this out every once in a while so I decided to do another post.

Well, since my last post a lot of things have happened.  We have been to Sri Lanka (again), Bali, Germany, and Nepal as a family.  We have also been to Thailand, Cambodia, India, Bali and Sri Lanka on class and/or sporting trips.  PHEW!!!  Too bad most of these trips were booked by the school...thousands of frequent flyer miles lost.  HA!  On top of all of this crazy travel, we have decided to take jobs in Brazil next year!!!  We are headed to Sao Paulo in July!  Perfect timing for the Olympics for any of you that want to come visit.  Just saying.

Pictures speak louder than words so I will post a few pics from our travels.

Thanksgiving Trip to Sreemongal

Although I have seen it spelled several different ways, Sreemongal is what comes up on Facebook whenever we checked in over the weekend.  No matter how you spell it, Sreemongal was absolutely beautiful!  We took a van from Dhaka to Sylet/Sreemongal and stayed in an Eco-villa with some great friends and had an outstanding time.  Very busy, but fun time.  We got picked up Thursday, Thanksgiving morning, and got dropped back off Saturday evening.  30 minutes after we got out of the van and settled into our room, we were getting on a bike and going for a bike tour of the local tea plantations and surrounding area.  On our way back, we stopped and had a Bangladeshi style Thanksgiving dinner.  Stuffed, we got back onto our bikes and rode the rest of the way back to our villa where we had a few cups of hot local tea before going to bed.  The next morning we woke up early and went for a four hour hike through the hills to a very cool waterfall that gets visited by many locals and tourists alike.  It was definitely a challenging hike, but well worth it.  The hike began in a local village where we were greeted by some children selling bamboo walking sticks...for $0.25 each so of course we bought them.  And we did give them some extra...even if it was because they didn't have change.  HA!  During the hike we had to cross a few "ditches" by some pretty sketchy bamboo bridges.  One was collapsed on our way back through!  After our mega hike, we went back to the villa to freshen up and then off to dinner and 7-Layer tea!  7-Layer tea is exactly what it sounds like, it is 7 layers, each of a different flavor tea.  Reminded us of a warm cider of sorts.  Very good and highly recommended if you ever get the chance to try it.  Saturday morning, we woke up and after another amazing Bangladeshi breakfast of eggs, fruit, roti bread, and tea we were off for another hike.  This time we were in a national park and in the jungle.  We had the unique opportunity to see a family of Gibbons and even got to meet some local jungle 'tribal people' according to our guide...who was AMAZING!  In all, Sreemongal was an excellent trip.  Can't wait for our next Bangladeshi excursion.