Dreama

Dreama (Shopna) with her fashionable pink "teep". Ususally it is a black spot on her forehead.

KumKum (r), the mother and Dreama.

OMG!!! You are probably looking at this baby’s picture as saying “What in the world have they done to this child!?!” Yeah, I said the same thing too. The big red spot on the forehead with pencil eyebrows and eyeliner is all a part of dispelling the evil spirits. According to Bangladeshi custom, the evil spirits will look at this baby and say ‘OMG!! What an ugly baby’ and move on to take the next beautiful baby. Such is the way with all of the babies that I have seen in Bangladesh. It is a shock when you first see it. The picture shows her with her pink “teep” to match her dress, a fashion statement. But I digress.

On 22 August, we celebrated the first birthday of Shopna (Dreama). I was responsible for the name. You see, her mother KumKum (just a sweet name) is a sometime maid in our house. Last year when she was pregnant, she kept saying that this is her son, her son, her son. But I dreamed before she was born that the baby was a girl, in fact, I dreamed that there were twins. So when she was born, they named her after my dream... shopna in Bangla.

In this picture of her, she is wearing a dress that I brought her from America for her birthday. It is a size 12 months, just so you can get a size comparison. It is a fact that Bangladeshi people are indeed smaller than American people. But she is a healthy baby, laughs a lot and is trying hard to walk.

Her parents are another interesting story. KumKum, a Muslim fell in love with Akash (Bangla for sky), a Hindu. He converted to Muslim to marry her. Now, KumKum’s family will not speak to her and Akash’s mother, still a Hindu is dying to get her hands on the baby but KumKum will not go to her house because she is a Hindu! It is all so confusing to me. So KumKum and Shopna spend lots of time in our house and Shopna gets lots of attention. Aksah runs a tea and cigarette stand across from the hospital near our house. Kaki gives them food many days, as KumKum is not such a good cook.

On another note, I probably need to catch up. My project in Bangladesh ended at the end of February 2011. I came back to Chattanooga at Easter. Since the end of February, I have been looking for a job on either side of the planet, no success yet, but several maybes on the horizon. I returned to Dhaka in mid-August to celebrate Ramadan (the Muslim fasting month) and Eid (the major Muslim holiday), but still looking for a job as well… more on Ramadan and Eid later.

TTFN

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