Volleyball time

I love seeing our boys playing with the boys from the hostel. Our boys love playing volleyball the best. Badminton, soccer and cricket are also played but the hostel boys skills are pretty good with the other sports so our boys feel a bit behind the game.

The hostel boys also enjoy watching our boys play computer games, talk about no privacy haha... this is through our lounge windows..

Also some of the hostel boys enjoying a fire just outside our place. At least the smoke helps keep the mosquitos away.

Start up of school

I've started back Homeschooling our boys which is going quite well. I have been a bit distracted with trying to assist in the start up of the school here in Chandpur. Getting student numbers and aiding in making a budget has taken a bit of time. It takes time because I have to learn how the systems work here. Everything is much more paper based, it then gets transferred to digital and so it all takes time. I think that once I know how everything is set up and which books and spreadsheets are used then I'll start to get faster. Last night I was awake in bed and my mind was trying to work out how certain reconciliations were being done. Finally the penny dropped and I've realised I must be missing one book for cheque receipts. It's little things like that that can stump you but you are not always given what you need and it's only when you need it that you realise you need to ask for it. I've been so used to using an accounting programme where everything is one place and reconciled on a daily basis and this is the total opposite. You have to physically go to the bank to get a bank statement once a month, there's no online banking with automatic feeds into your accounting program and you can't just log in for an up to date bank balance. It's like it used to be in New Zealand when I was a teenager. All in all though, I'm enjoying the challenge.

DC is up and down to Dhaka working at the two schools. He's got a huge list of things to do in the schools and also for the BEST online learning. He's also going to be helping out in various hostels around Bangladesh which will require a bit of travel. I don't think he will have too much time to twiddle his thumbs.

We had a mother and daughter from NZ here for 3 weeks. They were great value and were very helpful as the school started up for the year. We really did appreciate their help, especially on book day when the parents came to purchase all the children's work books for the year. It was also nice to have a few Kiwis around for a bit.

In our house

We have now been in our new home for 2 weeks and are feeling settled with only a couple of things still to do around the place to make us completely Mozzie free.

I'm loving getting back to basics, we have no hot water so we need to boil up water in our big pots, put some in a bucket, add cold and then you can wash. There's nothing quite like a bucket bath, I love it! We also have to boil and filter all our drinking water so you need a regular routine to make sure you don't run out of water. The pots on the ground are what we use for boiling our drinking water and bathing water and the filter is on the right side.

DC bought PVC piping which he cut to use as posts on our beds to hang our Mosquito nets on. It works so well and it's nice not having ties going to the walls that you have to duck under.

The pond outside our place is used for fish farming and was recently harvested. They dragged a net and hauled in some huge fish. People came from the neighbouring houses and we were all able to purchase fresh fish at a very cheap price. It was delicious. They are bigger than they look in the photo although these are the dregs after the best fish had already been purchased. I was pleased to see small fish being thrown back.

Our older boys are enjoying playing Volleyball each day with the Hostel boys on our compound. The younger boys tend to play badminton. Unfortunately our two little guys are crook with fevers so they'll be resting up.