Bangladeshi christmas eve

Christmas was a pretty interesting time in Bangas! Rather than starting sometime after Easter as it does in Australia, things started to pop up in the odd westernised shop or two about a week before Chrissie. On Victory day, late december, Shell and I decided that it was time... so we jumped on a rickshaw and headed down to old Dhaka to find a christmas tree! We got some funny looks coming back in the rickshaw with the tree, but everyone was pretty pleased to see us celebrating our holiday... including our rickshaw driver! Good conversation starter at the stop sign - we were chatted up by many a neighbouring rickshaw full of boys...

Although Bangladesh is predominantly Muslim, the acceptance of other religions is amazing here. Coming from a country in which Islam is barely tollerated by our political leaders, Bangladeshi people's open and sincere interest in Christianity and christian traditions is so refreshing, even if it causes some problems for me when I can't answer the questions about the difference between churches and chapels, why we have hot cross buns, who the christian prophets are, and so on!

My flatmates got given Christmas presents at work, but I got an even better present - the boys that I work with came over on Christmas eve to decorate our appartment in Christmas lights and streamers! They took their interior decoration job very seriously - measuring the width between
streamer ends and balloons, and even brought snow-in-a-can to make us feel even more Christmas-y, in a European kind of a way (or maybe in a Tasmanian kind of way - sounded cold this Christmas!)! Pretty good for a Christmas-eve away from home!

Bridge (left) and Sarah (right) got nicely snow-covered during our white-Bangladeshi Christmas eve!
Moni bhai, Rubes and Munna bhai decorating the flat...










The boys with their finished product!