Ron and Sally Jo Blog

 

We recently spent six days “on the road” with our Area Directors and the International Program director from Winnipeg visiting several projects.  There were many hours on the road between projects, but that is the reality here.  This map shows where we went.  The red stars are the towns and the green circles are the approximate location of the churches.  We spent our first night in Bogra.

Our first stop was at a Catholic Mission.  We were welcomed by singing and presentation of flowers.  We found this wherever we visited—singing and flowers.  It is a nice welcome!  The St Francis of Assisi Church of Dhanjuri was established in the 1940s.  It’s a beautiful church.  Attached to the mission is a leprosarium and a hostel for disabled children both of which we visited.  We drove down some slippery narrow roads until eventually, we needed to get out and walk to a village.  There we visited a Peace club meeting and one woman who had been given a cow and had bettered her life.  The peace club includes community members of diverse faiths, mainly Muslim, Hindu, and Christian, who meet regularly to discuss common concerns. We spent the night in Dinajpur.  We had a delicious supper of fresh chipatis and chicken kebabs.

The following day we visited another village.  This time again, the car could not drive all the way to the village but we rode a flat-bed rickshaw for several kms.  We stopped to visit a community training meeting where the women were learning about growing vegetables.  The lesson was on recognizing good and bad seeds.  MCC does not provide seeds but does a lot of education so that women can grow better crops.  Even though MCC has a group of women that we work with especially, the trainings are for anyone who wants to attend.  Men also sometimes come.  Afterwards we stopped at one of the homes of a woman who was given a bull and has been successful.  We learned that though it is culturally inappropriate to own a bull, she is willing to do so. She also has begun to raise rabbits, chickens, grass for her animals, and does composting.

We stopped at Peace playground initiated by MCC.  This one is quite large and is close to a school.  The children said they like to play there.  In one of the rondavels a small Peace club was meeting; they have been meeting for about three years.  Because of what they have learned they are doing things for the community.  They have gathered clothes to give to those poorer than they.  They have helped fill potholes in the road.  They are planning activities for the community for World Peace Day.  It was good to see such an active and excited group.

We had lunch at the Catholic Church with whom we partner in this area.  Again we were welcomed by singing and flowers.

On our way back to Bogra we stopped in Saidpur to see a company called Action Bag.  It was started in 1991 by MCC but is now privately owned.  The owner is doing a worldwide business and has just moved into a large new building.  They were in the process of filling a large order for jute bags for Ten Thousand Villages.  They also make various types of bags from recycled saris.  And they are beginning to do some screen printing.

We took a side trip to visit an 18^th century Hindu temple, Kantaji Temple.  This beautiful temple is dedicated to Krishna and his wife Rukmini. It was completed in 1752.  It has beautiful terracotta architecture.  One website describes the terracotta this way:

Terracotta Decoration available in every inch of its wall surface both inside and out depict flora and fauna, the exploits of Krishna, the stories of the Mahabharata (Mahabharata and the Ramayana), favorite pastimes of the landed aristocracy. The amazing profusion, modeling have seldom been surpassed by any mural art of its kind in Bengal. One can observe here a carefully arranged thematic scheme at different levels and spaces on the temple wall.

 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 13th, 2016 at 11:29 am and is filed under Bangladesh. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.