Lice, a Labrador and some Bora

All of us volunteers are from different corners of the world and working in different corners of CRP. One of the girls, Joy, from Holland, is working in the special needs school (by the way Dianne, she also says that Appekop is not a term you call your wife.) This was a gutsy move on her part because not only is the special needs school not nearly as developed as the SCI unit, but the treatment of children here leaves a lot to be desired. She has witnessed what we would refer to as malpractice or even abuse in Canada, but she continues on, advocating for her patients.

One day she was shocked to discover that the caregivers had cut a few corners (pun definitely intended) when grooming the children. All the children (girls and boys) arrived with their heads shaved. We were all pretty shocked at this apparent attack on moral. Joy continued to run group therapy and individual treaments throughout the day. She finally decided she should ask why on earth the decision to shave everyone's heads was made. The reply, "Oh, they all have lice." It was said offhanded, like "Oh, the sky is cloudy today." or "Oh, there's rice for lunch again."

Since then we have all been itchy.We're a little miffed as to why the therapist in the special needs school was not informed of the lice status, but there you have it. This is Bangladesh after all.

As for the labrador, I have managed to get my dog fix while here (not my dog fixed, but my dog fix). The founder of CRP, Valerie Taylor, has a pet Labrador  retriever named Jerry. As she has gone to England for 2 months, Jerry has been abandoned in his little home. I volunteered to walk him every day or two in her absence (while I'm still here, which is only 2 more weeks, one of which I'm in the Sundarbans). Jerry is a typical lab in an atypical situation. He is tremendously lonely and is locked on their large porch. He cannot go into their fairly secure yard because of the anti-dog rhetoric that occurs in Muslim beliefs. He is considered unclean (I believe this is in a religious sense. Valerie informed me that devout Muslims must thoroughly clean a room that a dog has been in before they are able to pray. Please correct me if this is wrong). Although there are some people here who claim "Ami kokur pochando korri" (I like dogs) the vast majority are fearful and find them loathsome. Basically, this resulted in her last two dogs being poisoned while she was away. They were poisened in her own yard.

Man, it takes a whole other level of patience and kindness to put up with the very people who poison your dogs. I have therefore been charged with his walking and his on-leash protection.

For everyone's information, every one of these dogs were given to her by people who were leaving Bangladesh and unable to take their dogs. Valerie has not repeatedly bought dogs only to have them killed. She is a rescuer of sorts.

Finally, I have had a great cooking experience. Asha, the fabulous daughter of our house mother, took time out of her evening to teach us how to cook kola bora. Bora means small ball, or food in a small ball, kola is banana. This dish consists of banana, flour, egg, milk, sugar, more sugar and coconut . It is then balled up and dropped into bubbly oil. (Everything here can be fried. We even had a deep fried hard boiled egg. no joke.) It is amazing. I think Paul will be especially fond of this one as it tastes like deep fried banana loaf. sooooo good.

That's it for now.
Linds