After watching a documentary on Tibet last night and staying up past 11pm, I woke up this morning at nearly 8am which is the latest I have ever since arriving 8 days ago. After breakfast, Rick himself drove us out to the Buddhist monastery and orphanage that he tends to in Dhaka town. It's Friday and the holy day of the week so fortunately, traffic was 500 times better than on nearly every other day of the week. Still, Rick's driving was superb and I am continuously baffled at how drivers and bikers calculate mere centimeters and millimeters of scraping past each other while on the road. The orphanage was about 15 minutes drive away in this light traffic today.
On arrival, I immediately knew how much Rick's generous spirit and presence has played on the people and place. We were welcomed with warm smiles and lovely tea and Bengali snacks by the monastery leader. This is the biggest monastery in Dhaka that Rick found when he first arrived in the city four years ago and there is a large body of water in the center of the complex where people play and can bathe. There are steps going down and this has been seen quite a bit in the city. There are 600 boys boarding at the school and Rick first offered English tutoring at the school. Along with networking kind donations from friends, the monastery was able to fund a $10,000 water well to supply clean water to the school, monastery and community now! Rick's school also has regular service projects such as tutoring at the school now too.
The monastery recently built a 38 meter tall gold Buddha statue in the complex and Rick was presented a miniature sized gold statue to take home - another example of their love and appreciation of Rick! The prime minister came for its grand opening and blessing of the statue which was definitely a big deal! We toured the complex with the principal of the school and Rick hung a Tibetan prayer flag he had brought in one of the temple areas of worship. We saw some of the boys playing cricket on their field just outside their boarding complex. 600 students and 43 teachers, 10 computers and no dining room. They were meant to build a new dining room and library and government gave money to do so but stopped suddenly and that meant only the ground was broken. There is no stable financial support for the school and that's the most challenging situation the leaders face--having to rely on donations. If only........
After the visit, we headed back to the main area near home to meet Rick's friend Shobuj. He was kind enough to take some time out of his day (after the new year's celebration last night) to show us around Old Dhaka and some specific places Rick thought we would enjoy visiting. So we headed to Old Dhaka in my first CNG (natural gas) green caged vehicle. We got into Old Dhaka in good time (the same way to Sonargoan the other day took nearly 3 times longer in bumper to bumper traffic!). Then got on a rickshaw and headed to "The Pink Palace" - the former residence of Bengali royalty now turned into a museum. It opened at 3pm so we headed to the river side and walked on one of the boats that take people to various places in Bangladesh.
The water way was busy with small wooden boats and big boats (for travel), as well as industrial boats for carrying cargo. We had time to kill so we took a small boat across the river over to the other side to have lunch and so Shobuj could also pray at the mosque. The river is not clean and so is hard to see kids swimming in it! We will come back to this river tomorrow on our full day river cruise we have booked!
Heading to the Pink Palace, the building/museum is old but still well visited by many locals (especially since it was Friday!). We walked over to "Hindu street" after this and this is a very narrow street in Old Dhaka where traditional temples and Hindu ceremonies are still held on a daily and weekly basis.
On the way back home, we stopped at one of Shobuj's uncles fabric stores and then got in a local bus to stop and visit his home. Again, the people here are so happy to welcome you into their homes and his sister cooked us some noodles during our visit with a cold drink. Their house is very sweet indeed and has a little concrete space where all the neighborhood kids come to play at.
We are definitely exhausted from another big day of adventure in Dhaka tonight.....ready for another tomorrow!
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