New Year's Party!

We had a fabulous time celebrating the New Year with our friends in Dhaka. We sang and danced, late into the night (or morning!).

New Year's Eve Party

Here we are at the New Year's Eve party at the American club. Although the music could have been better, we had a nice evening out. Wes and I tried some swing dancing. Azfar got out on the dance floor to shake things up, too, with his Hussain-insane-in-the-brain moves. It was Urmi's first time at a New Year's party, so we pulled her out on the dance floor and she had a great time. But the most exciting part of the night was: they had a drawing for prizes, and Azfar and I won first prize! We got free round-trip airplane tickets from Dhaka to Nepal, for two people! We also got the last prize, which was a huge box of meat (very yummy!). Anyway, we're working on figuring out when we can go to Nepal--we'll keep you posted!

Shubho Nobobosho (Happy Bengali New Year!)

April 14 is the Bengali new year. In Bangla, "Shubho Nobobosho" means "happy new year." On this day literally millions of people poured out into the streets in Dhaka to celebrate in festivals all over the city. There was music, dancing, food, face-painting, roadside vendors selling everything from popcorn to bamboo flutes, clothes, toys, ice cream, jewelry, and everything inbetween. Azfar, Salma and I spent all day at the festival by Dhaka University. Salma loved it, although she got totally worn out. Salma and I both got our faces painted. And Salma ate ice cream, and she got plenty spoiled with balloons and a Bengali flag. Lots of people took pictures of our "little nationalist" who was running around with her Bengali flag saying "Joy Bangla! Ami Bengali!" Anyway, we had a great time although we were all completely worn out by the end of the day. (And Azfar had quite an adventure with his rickshaw, which had a head-on collision with another rickshaw...quite a funny story, since nobody got hurt, although I don't think the driver is laughing.)

More Students

Here's another shot with some more of my students at our New Year Party.

My Students

Here's some of my students who came over to our place for a New Year party. These students are all from my composition course. We had a full house, tons of food, and lots of fun. As usual, Salma was the the highlight of the event. My students decided she is officially the cutest baby they have ever seen. Of course, I had to agree.