Part 19: A Year Come to an End

January 19, 2023

Choyghoria, Bataighata

District Khulna, Bangladesh

Before we get started: yes, I am aware that my family came to visit me and I owe you all a report. We had a week full of amazing memories and good old family fun times. I think everyone needs to go to the mission so they can have the experience of having their family come to visit them. Once I have time, I will write stories about that week for you to read. Have patience. First, I want to get Christmas and New Years’ stories out of the way.

Christmas and New Year’s 2022

Christmas morning dawned foggy and wet. I stumbled down the stairs to an exuberant and slightly sarcastic “Merry Christmas!” from Trevor. I managed to croak out a feeble “Merry Christmas” before finding some coffee to warm my hands; then back up the stairs to get ready to go to Gopalganj and Kelly’s house. The Khulna congregation had been invited to Gopalganj for a Christmas service. We were planning to take the two members who were able to go and drive an hour to the Gopalgonj church before eating lunch with Kelly’s and the rest of Gopalganj.

Before we left, we received plenty of hearty “Merry Christmas” and “Shubho Borodin” greetings from our Hindu and Muslim neighbors. We trained them well! One of our Muslim friends even gifted us two lilies for Christmas. Now what, are we supposed to give him two apple trees for Eid?

We arrived at Liton’s house to pick him up and he revealed that he had some news. He had a Hindu friend who had heard we were having a Christmas party and wanted to come. After a phone call to Kelly to make sure it was ok, Liton told us to wait “Just ten minutes,” and the guy would show up. After ten minutes, we were told to drive ahead to Liton’s barber shop, as the guy would be meeting us there. “Only two minutes,” Liton assured us, as he hopped out to go find his friend. In the meantime, Kabir hopped into our van. He seemed rather bothered that Liton was wasting all of our time. “I just think it is disrespectful to waste another man’s time like this,” he said in his clipped English. Always the optimist, he chuckled as he complained.

“Yes,” I said. “I think it has been more than two minutes.” It had, in fact, been closer to ten minutes at this point.

“Sister, you must remember, we are on Liton’s time, not ours.” he quipped. That has now become a running joke: Liton’s time.

We eventually arrived, albeit thirty minutes late, at the little tin and bamboo church hidden among the fruit trees and flowers. Two uniformed police officers with guns had been sent by the city to protect us, should anything go wrong. I’m not sure why they needed to be there? They said it was required by the government that police protection be at all Christmas services. Who knew?

After the service, we all went to Kelly’s house for Bangla chicken, dal, vegetables, and of course, rice. You can’t have a meal in Bangladesh without rice. It wouldn’t be right. All the Gopalgonj members, as well as some of Kelly’s Christian neighbors, ate and celebrated with us.

I don’t think our new Hindu friend knew what to make of it all. Our Christmas “party” was a little more tame than any other Christmas party. I think he was expecting big speakers and dancing. He made good company of his phone and the movies thereon. The days between Christmas and New Years were, as always, a blur. We tried to have school. I’m not sure if we succeeded or not.

One highlight of the in-between days was when Emily and her folks came and spent the day at our house. Please allow me the delight of telling you about Emily:

We met Emily by chance one day in the grocery store. She is an American woman who has been married to a Bangladeshi man for almost eight years. She met her husband, Alpha, when she came on a mission trip at the age of 16. He was her translator. Now, they are married and have a two-year-old cutie named Noah. Lisa and Emily hit it off right away. Noah and Kylie love to play together. Since that first meeting, we have done lots with Emily. It’s so nice to have an American friend who just “gets it.”

Her parents are career missionaries. They have spent the majority of their time in Germany and the Czech Republic. They came to Bangladesh for Christmas, and Emily insisted that we had to get together with them.

The second they stepped off the EZ bike, I knew I would love them. Emily’s towering dad had made two pies for lunch: pecan and lemon merengue, my personal favorite. He had a laugh that echoed up from his belly, and would pronounce “Very fun!” after a laughing fit. Emily’s mom had wild red hair and a personality to match.

When Lena, Emily’s mom, asked me where I was from I said, “Kansas!” “Oh,” she said, as she inspected me over her glasses. “What part?” “You won’t know it. It's a small town”

“Try me.”

I did the thing I learned from my oldest sister and said, “Do you know Dodge City?” Most people do, after all. “Just about an hour and a half southwest of Dodge.”

“Oh wow!” Lena said enthusiastically. “I know Dodge, Liberal, Colby, Kinley, Garden, Salina, Abilene ect, ect...”

“Garden City?! I was born there!” I replied with great volume.

“Oh yes, I have a cousin there! And my other cousin is a judge on the Kansas State Supreme court!”

I was in shock. Way out here in South Asia, I met a woman who currently lives in the Czech Republic, who has been to my town. I couldn’t have made up a better story if I had tried.

They stayed all day. They were very interesting and comfortable. We played games, told stories, and discussed mission work. It was fascinating to hear such a different take on the mission. At the end of the day, I was wondering when we could ever hang out with them again, but now, they are gone, back in the Czech Republic, preaching the Gospel and converting Atheists.

On December 31st, it was time for us to go to Tala. Our members, Harun and Joyanti, live out there all by themselves. We go every two weeks to have a service with them. It's about an hour and a half drive, and sure get tired of being bumped around on the pot-holey roads by the time we get there.

We hadn’t planned eating there, so when they called us and told us they were cooking for us, we were a bit surprised. We pulled up to their little blue house/church building at 10 am and sat around for a while until they decided to have Sunday school. After that, we sat around some more and watched Joyanti cook the freshest fish I’ve ever eaten. Literally, they were still alive and breathing while she was cutting them up. We sat around on the dirt floor of the church and feasted on rice, fish, chicken, and shak (greens). After our bellies were well-filled and our mouths were pleasantly on fire from the village-y spice, we had a church service. Trevor handed out blankets as a Christmas present to the Sunday School students.

After that, we piled back into our brown van and bumped away.

Being New Year’s eve and all, we had another invitation to go eat on that day. Our friend Fahim was having a “picnic” for all his factory workers, and he had invited us as well. As we drove down our cow-path-excuse-for-a-road to our house, we couldn’t imagine how we could possibly eat more rice. We had just had a giant meal not that long ago, and we knew Fahim wouldn’t settle for anything simple or small.

Luckily, we got to wait for our food to settle. Tulshi the guard had told us he would come get us around seven or eight o’clock, and then we would all walk the short distance to Fahim’s house together. Seven o’clock came and went. Eight o’clock came and went. Finally, he came over and told us it would be “a little later.” We sat around and tried not to snack on the tempting Christmas candy and leftover pies in the fridge.

Around nine o’clock, I heard a commotion outside our gate. Tulshi, Fahim, and some of their friends had come to blow up black cats in a dead palm tree right in front of our house. We all went out to join in the reverie, and Fahim excitedly told us about the food we were about to eat. His eyes lit up when he revealed that we would be dining on his favorite, dal (lentils) with fish heads in it. I got rather excited, too, for I have already discovered that this is indeed very good. The fish heads add such a nice flavor.

Finally, Tulshi turned to Fahim and said, “How much longer will we have to wait?” “Oh, it's ready. We can go now!” Fahim replied, seeming surprised that Tulshi asked. And so we went. We walked down the brick pathway and through the bamboo gate.

When we arrived at the house surrounded by tall trees and flower gardens, we found that the workers had already arrived. They were sitting on the ground beneath a tarp that had been hung to shelter from the cold December breeze. “Come inside,” Fahim beckoned us. Lisa didn’t know what the reason was for putting us inside. We get tired of special treatment sometimes. We thought we could manage to sit on the ground with the rest and eat from paper plates just fine. But, in the end, we decided to let them spoil us just like they always want to do. Maybe it would be OK for them to spoil us just this once.

And spoil us they did. They led us to the big brother’s room. If you recall, the “big brother" is the owner of the factory next door. He’s the rich one who struts around the village in sunglasses and blue jeans like a big dog. He’s actually super nice though. Anyway, we were led to the big brother’s room and were made to sit down on the bed. Fahim called for the key to the china cupboard, in which sat six crystal glasses and a set of golden silverware. (Was it real crystal? Was it real gold? We will never know, but it sure makes a good-sounding story.) He got the glasses out the cupboard, sent them to be washed, and safely locked it again. Soon, we saw the sister-in-law whisking about in her fancy veil holding the china plates. “We can eat on paper plates! There is no need for the trouble!” We told them over and over. But they suddenly had ears that wouldn’t hear. We decided to let them have their way with us and kept our mouths shut.

A mountain of rice was placed on our plate. They put a bowl full of the famous fish-head dal on the bed, and actually didn’t stop me when I began to serve it to everyone. It met all expectations.

I didn’t know if it could be beat, but then I saw the shrimp! Now, I knew the shrimp would be five stars, because I had eaten shrimp in this very home before. It. Was. Perfect. *chef’s kiss*

Following the shrimp came duck. Tulshi heaped piles and piles onto my plate. Moments later, he held something up on his serving spoon and pronounced “Sister, will you take this?” I thought it was the head, so I emphatically said “Oh yes, of course! Give it to me!” Upon biting into it, I found out that it was not the head. Instead, it was that little piece of something that sits between the breast pieces with you butchering a bird. Not the heart, not the lungs, but something else. I can’t remember what it was called. I won’t be sad if I never eat it again though, because most of it ended up on the bone plate.

Following the main courses, we were served doi, or yogurt. (Though, not the yogurt you buy from Harvest Foods or Lowe’s. This “yogurt” is fermented in an earthen pot over many days, giving it the perfect delectable texture and sweet undertone. It slides down the throat like butter on a hot saucepan. Big fan of doi, I am)

After the eating was finished, we walked around the yard a bit. I petted the dog, Tom, and we thanked the sister-in-law for her delicious food. Fahim and Tulshi assured us that there was enough food left for them, and that they would eat after we left, as is their custom. So, we walked home to wait another hour and a half until midnight.

On the way home, we were stopped by some of our neighbors: “Come with us! We are going to go dancing! You’ve never seen us dance before, have you?” They took our arms and tried to drag us along, but we told them we couldn’t. “It’s late, and night has already fallen. We have just eaten, and our bellies are too full to go. We can’t watch you dance tonight.”

Once the clock hit midnight, we whooped our feeble whoops into the cold night air. As our neighbors started for their homes from the village gathering at the school, we exchanged many “Happy New Year” greetings. We watched a few fireworks, ate our first food of the year, and settled deep beneath our thick blankets.

And thus, 2022 came to a close. A year full of happiness, sadness, love, and loss. A year that my feet never touched American soil. A year quite unlike any other I have lived; one I would never trade for all the gold and silver in the world.

Happy New Year to all! It’s been a few weeks, but, historically, I haven’t been known for my punctuality. Thanks for all the sweet holiday messages, and if you were one of those who sent cards/packages over the holidays, thanks again!

Until next time,

-Kalli