Modhupur - the land of honey

Henry, Elliot and I traveled with Shobita to Shilpi's village, Modhupur (which means honey town), for Easter, which coincided with Shilpi's son's baptism, over a 2 day / 1 night trip.  We had an amazing time; one of my best experiences in Bangladesh, no exaggeration.  The weather was great, Henry and Elliot had a blast - a relaxing blast, the local people were calm and jovial, the food was great, there was elbow room, life slowed down, and I just plain relaxed.


I had heard that pineapples came from this area but did not expect to see pineapples growing in every open space as far as the eye could see. 


First we stopped by Shilpi's house for some lunch, a little playing, and a bath for each.

 

We then headed over to where Shobita grew up. We spent the rest of that day, the night, and the next day until lunch at Shobita's.  Henry was so lucky that a family with 3 boys stayed on this 'bari', or set of houses that share one kitchen, because he played with them non-stop.  The grandma figure at this bari had 5 sons and 3 daughters.  One son (the husband of the pregnant woman you'll see in the photos) still lived there and 2 were visiting for Easter.  The 3 young brothers were the sons of one of those visiting. 

The mom of the three boys with the youngest in the sling

At one point Henry tried a tomato that he found on a plant.  He liked it and then became the recipient of so many tomatoes people kept plucking.

 Socializing

This is the bari around sunset. We slept in the room on the left with the window that you see. While there was no electricity, the weather greatly cooled off in the evening and we all slept great!

 At one point I left Elliot with the ladies and went off with Henry.  I came back to find Elliot blissfully sleeping in a newly made hammock.  This contraption was amazing!  They could install it just about anywhere, and Elliot loved the feeling of being snuggled in it.  It was especially great because Elliot could sleep naked which allowed him to keep quite cool.

 By the way, the mound of sand under Elliot in this photo is actually a huge pile of sand built by ants!  It was seriously about 2 feet tall. I had no idea ants were in there and I can only imagine what would have happened if Henry had kicked any one of the numerous times he ran by it.  The family said they have tried a number of times to get rid of the mound but the ants just keep coming back.

There was a bit of time spent preparing meals and cooking.
Here the woman is cleaning up a chicken foot - yum.  Actually, I'll admit I didn't eat any feet - but someone sure did.

This is everyone preparing dinner.  Henry helped to pick the lal shak - the same vegetable that Elliot loves

 

Henry was MESMERIZED by watching dhu dhu actually come from the cow!

 

Making tea

 On Easter we walked to church - where Shipli's son was baptised after the Easter service.  Here is Shobita holding Henry as they walk through the rice field. You can see the church in front the far left of the photo.

This scene below made me laugh.  We showed up before the service started but after all the children were already seated and waiting very patiently for the service to begin.  While I was talking with Shipli outside, Henry and Elliot started crawling around in front of everyone. 

After church, we went back to Shilpi's for the big event to celebrate her sons baptism.  We ate a pig that her family sacrificed - and they even saved a whole leg of the pig - hoof and all - for Scott!

Sweet Guissess

In memory of our sweet Guissess as Henry, and then all of us, began to call him instead of Guinness

Beyond Scott who got Guinness during his college years and me who adopted him when I met Scott nearly 10 years ago, here are some of Guissess best friends:

A day in the life...

We're spoiled with living so close to the pool making it easy to head there every afternoon after work.  Now Henry has taken to putting on his swimsuit before I get home so that I would be too guilty to say we can't go.  Well, if we have to muster up the energy to go play there every day (ha, no complaints!) at least we can say that Henry has had made leaps and bounds with his swimming skills over the past 3 weeks. He can now swim across the pool if he hangs on to a styrofoam noodle. As you can imagine, it helps his motivation to push himself if he sees all of his older friends swimming around on their own.   

Henry goes to a half day of school, Jingle Bells, every day.  We carpool with his best friend Jafe which means that our car takes the boys in the morning and Jafe's car picks them up at lunch.  Normally I go down with Elliot in the morning and hang out until Henry is in the car.  All this fanfare usually takes about 5 minutes.  The other day when we switched up the carpool schedule and had to wait for a bit until Jafe's car came to get Henry in the morning, I brought my camera to take photos outside while we waited. 
Heading down in the elevator

Hanging out

 Picking flowers

 Watching some men start up a fire in a pile of leaves and garbage...of course

 Waiting to surprise Shobita

Just goofing off

Just wanted you to rest assured that he's keeping active.  Here's what he accomplished in 2 minutes:

Another random photo...can you tell why the food in this picture is weird?  It was taken at a highway bus stop restaurant that I often stop at.  For the record, I decided not to order the "chicken burger":

I realized the other day that I had not taken photos of Elliot in awhile (which Scott assures me means 5 days).  I happened to have the camera right near me when Elliot started to eat dinner so I began to take photos - and my oh my doesn't this lal shak (red spinach, one of our favs actually) look appealing??  Elliot happened to love it.

And on that note - have a great day!