Friday, July 25, 2008

PEDRO AND CRISTIANA'S JOURNAL 1

After having spent a night in London and flying for 9 hours in a British Airways flight, we arrived in Dhaka. We had to wait for more than one hour to see our visa issued and get our luggage back. During this hour we realised that there were properly more police officers, airport staff and others than passengers like us.

We got our luggage and went out quietly...
Out of the airport we felt the first shock with the Bangladeshi environment. The temperature and the smell were feeling like a kind of gum on us. It leaves an intense and warm taste in our mouths. While we got in a taxi we realised that there were many people pushing one another, hanging on the bars so making it difficult other people to get in the airport.
We then met a Dhaka Project founder staff member waiting for us, Jewel, and got directly to the Guest House.
After leaving our luggage in the Guest House we had a tour throughout the project: the new school, a preschool, a kindergarten, a sewing center, a basic needs shop, a cloths shop and the building where part of the school is running as well as the Dhaka Project administration.
There are many volunteers from several nationalities in the project such as English, Australian, one from Ireland and us from Portugal. There is also many local staff members who work for the project.
Some volunteers help the local teachers in planning and giving classes to the children or in teaching the women to take care of the children in the preschool and in the kindergarten.
We are feeling happy for being here.
I (Pedro) have been detached to give support in the management of almost all the projects inside The Dhaka Project.
Cristiana is giving support in the accountability field, not forgetting the visits to the nursery, where the smaller babies are, as well as to the preschool.
We have visited the preschool and the nursery regularly, sometimes paying long visits to provide some lap to the children. In some occasions we have so many children with us or over us that we can hardly breath. They like it and we get feeling much better re-energized to start a new day.

Pedro Montez and Cristiana

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