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| Arrius greets a new bedkit owner From Bangladesh 2007 Album |
We have finished our Bangladesh 2007 SCAW trip! It is over already and things have sure gone by fast. I hope you all enjoyed reading my blog posts. I am sure the SCAW team will gladly share our stories with all of you when we return to Canada. The trip has been wonderful and I have seen, experienced, and learned many things.
It has been fun writing the blog and keeping all of you up-to-date. I am now finishing my part and turning over this last post to Dave who will conclude it.
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| Click for larger view. Bangladesh 2007 Album |
This morning, November the 7th, we completed the distribution of 7,500 bedkits to the children of Bangladesh. [Editor's Note: Bringing our total to 905,350 bedkits since Murray Dryden's first distribution in 1970.]
In order to accomplish this successfully we needed to be well organized and efficient. The SCAW team of Don, Roberta, Judy, Clive, and Arrius was more than equal to this challenge. I am so proud of them. They were very competent, demonstrated their caring for the children, and worked very well with the Rotary and Lion's Club members and their volunteers.
One of the sacrifices the team had to make was the curtailling of some of the social interactions with the local people at each distribution site. They also were limited in opportunities to really see the children acting as children. It was as if they saw the children in a classroom setting rather than on the playground and at recess.
This afternoon we had a chance to see our bedkit recipients as playful children. We visited the village of Shambhupura. Last week fifty children from this village had travelled by bus for two and a half hours to a distribution site in Dhaka. There they received their bedkits and today Rotarians Abideen and Maswoodul took us back to Shambhupura to see the homes of these children.
All together we visited about fifteen homes and were invited in to meet the parents and the children. As we moved from house to house we were followed by the children, laughing and crowding around, just as children do throughout the world. It was a wonderful conclusion to our distribution trip.
Last night we attended a wrap-up dinner with the Lion's Club group, Mr. and Mrs. Hadi, and a number of their volunteers. Then tomorrow it will be a day of shopping and sightseeing followed by a dinner hosted by the Rotary Club of Dhaka.
This weekend the SCAW team heads in different directions. Clive, Judy, and Dave head back to Canada, while Don, Roberta, and Arrius begin another adventure by going to Dheli (and staying in a $12 a night hotel!). They will be meeting up with some of their family and travelling around India.
I want to thank Arrius for his great work in posting our blogs and pictures. He is a wonderful young man who has added much to the team. I call him "Stretch" because he spends all of his waking hours working hard at the distribution site, eating, or stretching his muscles. He is very accomplished at all of these tasks.
My thanks to the SCAW team and our overseas volunteers
Dave Dryden, team leader
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