Woah! Where did December Go?

Well it has been way too long since we posted- apologies to all of our faithful readers. This month, Jon and Sam both had some paid writing gigs kick in, which is helpful in terms of cash, but also difficult to add in to an already busy December schedule. We’ve managed though – the only thing we let slide was the blog. (Actually the other really annoying thing we let slide was charging our camera batteries, so we are low on pics this month. Sorry!)

Anyhow, where to begin? Well two major events this month are December 16 (Victory Day for Bangladesh, which celebrates the end of the Liberation War and the birth of Bangladesh as an independent nation in 1971) and, December 25, Christmas. Of course, everyone seems to be celebrating Christmas early here, (because so many foreigners leave for the actual Christmas) and so the two kind of hit together. Both Victory Day and Christmas have created many social obligations and events, the first of which was Atticus’ school’s Christmas program.

The Christmas program at Atticus' school was fairly typical. Kids sang a combination of pop songs and Christmas carols, everything was decorated like Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry Night,” and Santa rode in on a horse-drawn carriage and gave out presents – actually, as you can see, everything was strangely a little bit off. Not only was it mostly in French, which we don’t understand (but Atticus increasingly does), but we never did figure out the relevance of Van Gogh. Ah well, they did have wine at the post-concert buffet, so you have to love the French (although the food ran out after about 1/5 of the people got served).

Here is a picture of the singing, a picture of Atticus in his crown looking adorable, and a picture of Sam petting a pony that pulled Santa’s carriage(it was so little!).

Next up was the Liberation War Museum, which as you all may know is where Sam does a lot of work with her research. They have a week long set of events for Victory Day, and we thought it would be nice for Atticus to get some cultural exposure. Earlier, we had been in neighborhood because Jon was having a meeting with the head of National Garment Workers Federation (NGWF) and will be doing some coordinating work with them and the Industrial Workers of World back in the US. It was a nice meeting for Jon to discuss important work regarding sweatshop labor and the rights of the factory workers here, and it was especially fun because the NGWF shares a building with the Worker’s Party, which has a giant banner with socialist images on it and red flags outside. It was nice to be surrounded by such openly leftist, and actually radical, folks!
So we went to the Liberation War Museum program and heard some nice bangla songs and saw some traditional bangla dance (which Atticus was quite fond of). It was very impressive too, as the girls performing this night were from a school for the blind, and they were doing some crazy coordinated dance moves without even being able to see each other. This picture doesn’t capture the real coolness, but here it is anyway.

Next up was a busy Saturday. First off, Atticus had to go get his flu shot. We couldn’t decide whether to get him vaccinated for H1N1, because we aren’t completely convinced it is necessary, but it is not an ideal medical access situation here so we figured we’d better play it safe. The French government offered it free for him since he attends a French school, and we rarely turn down free things, so we went and got it. The same day we had to get all dolled up and go to the Christmas party at Jon and Sam’s bangla school (since the school is run by a Christian NGO, they has a Christmas Party).

It was fun to get dressed up- Jon wore a nice suit, Atticus wore an adorable punjabi set, and Sam wore a sari (which she had to have the landlord’s mom help her put on correctly!) We’ll be sending out some pics of the family all dressy-like, so we aren’t posting them here yet, but here is a picture of Atticus enjoying the Christmas program at the school. (Sam at this point, is clearly a little party’d out, but at least Atticus is still having fun!)
The program itself was interesting, and since HEED has so many students from all over the place, it was pretty widely multi-cultural. We all really enjoyed hearing songs from all the different places from which students hail (Japan, Burma, Korea, Philippines -so come to think of it, it was pretty Asian…). Actually, by far the best part was when the trio of nuns that are taking classes at the school (and who we all just call The Nuns, collectively) sang songs. First they sang a nice traditional song from the Philippines, and then they busted out a English/Spanish/Neil Diamond style song, which was pretty rockin’. These ladies are just awesome, and we love them, so here is picture of them.

But as usual, there was weirdness. First off, Sam had to almost bite her tongue off to keep from convulsively laughing when the school director tried to answer her phone while on stage singing, without being obvious. OK, you can’t answer your cell phone while singing Oh Come All Ye Faithful on stage, and think nobody will notice if you do it slowly! It is hard to describe after the fact, but trust us, it was ridiculously funny. Also, between the decorations on the back of the stage and the choice of ballon pairings, (which were hung in sets about every square foot overhead) it kind of felt like a fertility clinic more than a Christmas party… we’ll let you take a look and figure that out on your own. It never stopped being funny, all night.

All in all, we’ve still got a lot going on, but we’ve stolen a few moments to blog. We promise not to be such blog slackers from here on and will update on new events soon!