Day 1- Bogra Distribution: “If You’re Happy and You Know it……”
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After an early morning start, we headed off with our Overseas Volunteer Partners, the Rotarians of Dhaka, on a five-hour bus ride. The Bangladesh landscape was a series of contrasts - urban sprawl that seemed to go on for hours, bustling markets, traffic jams, and trucks and bikes piled high with bags of rice, bananas, silver pots, and people. We passed were lush rice fields and rivers that were bustling with activity- fishing, swimming, and even a man washing his cow! Our very skilled driver navigated through the traffic, driving us to our first distribution safely.
The distribution was held at a school in Bogra, a town of 150,000 people in northwestern Bangladesh. We entered through a small doorway and were met by a sea of colour: the girls in their vibrant fuchsia and white polka dot dresses and the boys in baby blue or bright orange shirts. The children looked at us curiously, with somber and serious expressions on their faces. Some of us on the SCAW team shared their nervousness, as three of us are on our first distribution.
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We needed something to break the ice, so some of our team rose to the occasion. Bubble blowing elicited smiles and laughter, quickly replacing the serious looks. But that was only the warm-up act. Some very animated renditions of children’s action songs engaged the children and relaxed us all. “Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes, evoked lots of giggles, particularly from the older girls as they “touched their toes”. “ If You’re Happy and You Know It” had us “flapping like chickens!” Lets just say we had some very funny looking chickens- the children and us! The ice was broken and we all relaxed.
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Even more smiles appeared as the children were shown the items in the bedkit. Who would have predicted the joyous cheers for a raincoat! While every child seemed to appreciate their gift of a bedkit, some faces truly lit up at this precious gift, made possible by our SCAW donors.
