Just 1 week, but...

It blows my mind to begin to realize how much one can learn and change in just one week. And at the same time how much doesn’t change. Sabbath afternoon we went to do a program in the village nearby and the Bengali ladies were staring, talking, touching me, pinching my arms-Woah! It’s white skin!-haha Yes! I’m still white! I don’t think that’ll ever change!

I’m thinking this is the most hot and humid combo I’ve lived in, but I thought by the end of one week I was beginning to get used to sweating so much all the time. Well, apparently I’m not adapted well enough yet because last night the weather stole quite a bit of my sleep. One of our hottest days here turned into our most miserable night yet. We lay on our sheets, sweating. Despite our two fans going, our room on the 4^th floor is even more warm and stuffy than usual. Sleep is definitely not coming, so Lisa turns on our lifesaving A.C. for a few mins (it cools the room….pretty well, but it uses precious electricity so we try to use it only for about ½ hr. each night). Somehow we manage to begin a cycle of tossing and turning finding a new slightly cooler position every few mins, occasionally turning on the precious A.C. for a few mins for lack of other options to get any sleep! We were later able to borrow a temp/humidity gauge and found the misery index (temp and humidity combined calculation of what it actually feels like) reaching 118 in our room! No wonder we had trouble sleeping J

My first week here has been filled with many other things too. We’ve been learning the language since our 1^st day here with our 1^st phrase we learned and practiced with the kids “Tumi kaman hacho?”(“how are you?). I have now learned a handful of other phrases, animals, names, and even how to count to 23! Lucky me even got to speak for vespers our 1^st week here! I also got to play badminton for the 1^st time ever in the court they set up here! It was fun, but I do need some practice—Banni (one of our friends here) has agreed to teach me if I teach her piano J

I have also learned that not only do geckos crawl on your wall, they squeak! And frogs….they can jump a looooooong ways. Thanks to Lisa I have learned to stay even farther away from frogs when she is on the other side of themJ

But, we now have super comfortable, thin Bengali clothes that I love! So life is good J