Settling In

Well it’s Friday morning here, which means our weekend has officially begun. It was a busy week this week and it will feel good just to chill out around the house today.

PHOTO: Atticus and Jon on the fist day of school

Atticus had his first day of school on Wednesday. He made some friends and I think he was excited to finally get some kid playtime. His school schedule is Sunday to Thursday (Friday and Saturday is the weekend here) but every Thursday is a half day and he gets out at 12:30 instead of 3:00. So he has only really had 1 ½ days so far. Next week he will start his special tutoring in French with the other kids that don’t speak French. The good thing is that all the kids in his class speak a lot of English so he isn’t socially isolated. Part of his day is also taught in English. It’s a challenge, but he seems to be rolling with it and likes going so far.

When we went to pick him up on Wednesday we stopped by a large plant selling area right by his school. We’ve been wanting some greenery in the apartment and there are plants for sale everywhere here. We ended up buying 5 plants because they were so cheap and beautiful. We got a giant jasmine plant, a hibiscus plant, 2 of a flowering plant that grows all over Bangladesh- (I thought they said Birangonga was the name, which is similar to the name of a river here, but I don’t think that’s right) and one beautiful wonderful LIME TREE! It has 3 limes already and 2 on the way. It is also about 7 feet tall and we put it on our balcony.

On the way home we had to get our plants delivered so they suggested we hop on the flatbed rickshaw with them and ride along. We were quite the spectacle – a family of bideshis and a bunch of plants being slowly carted through the streets. We saw at least one guy take our picture and everyone was getting quite a kick out of it.

PHOTO: Atticus on the rickshaw with our plants

PHOTO: The limes!

PHOTO: Plants! The jasmine is the tall one in the back, the hibiscus is closest to the window and the other (of which there is another elsewhere) is the one I can’t think of the name of. We have a pink one and white one.



It’s starting to feel more and more like home here as our schedules are settling in and we’re getting the apartment personalized. We’re getting used to the twice daily power outages, the heat, and the general hectic-ness of the city. I think for the next post I’ll probably just recount some stories from our daily encounters. For those of you waiting to read about big adventure, just wait. Once we’re settled in we’ll start going more exotic places!