a fun little skating video

Skating from Surfing in Bangladesh on Vimeo.

each month i try to make a video for the kids, and they have been begging for a skating one. i'm so impressed at how good they have gotten! this is their favorite thing to do after class!

Little artist

He was very serious about this drawing, its him surfing in a barrel!

A Mini Skateboard Competition

Normally after we meet for class, the kids will skateboard on the abandoned tennis court for a while. Its just a flat sidewalk so all they really do is go around it, or do some random tricks in the middle. It was an incredibly hot day and I was ready to go after 5 minutes, we had no shade and it was a million degrees hot, but the kids insisted we have a competition. I laughed because there is not much you can do here, but we made up some rules, when it wasn't their turn to compete we had them create obstacles by becoming the "rip current." We are all about lifesaving terms now, teaching them what it means and we had others creating obstacles. What it mainly came down to was balance and if you were able to stay on the board and maneuver your board around those in your way then you won. I thought it was a bit cheesy but they loved it, two hours later in the heat we had a winner. We were all shocked that it was our youngest girl Aisha. 

The kids watching on waiting to see who wins this round.

Our 1st and 2nd place winner! They didn't want prizes but I took them to the shop and they picked out their favorite cookies and a lollipop.

All of our competitors!

Test Day

We did a makeup test for those who weren't there for the test and these two spent time writing in the sand and quizzing each other and passed!!

The airport

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Our friends from RNLI arrived today and we took a few of the kids with us to the airport to greet them. Soma was especially excited and stood at the gate watching the plane land, it was her first time seeing a plane up-close and being at the airport. It was fun to see her reaction and she was glued to that fence watching.

KFC time!

Nargis and Shobe Majaraz both did an amazing job on their vocabulary test, and little did they know that they would get rewarded with dinner at KFC.  The officially know how to read and write 50 english words. So proud of them!

A flashback glimpse of our visit with Clowns Without Borders

Clowns Without Borders visits the Cox's Bazar Lifesaving and Surfing Club from Surfing in Bangladesh on Vimeo.

Back in April we had the wonderful privilege of having Clowns Without Borders visit Bangladesh. At the time, they had a lot of things planned with the refugee camps, but they had a hard time getting permission, so our friend Marcia was able to get them to visit us:) I finally finished the video and am able to show you.

Honestly, I didn't know what to expect, my first concern was the language barrier, whether or not the kids would laugh and have fun....I don't know why I even worried about it because they were a hit and I don't think there was a minute that someone wasn't laughing. 

Exam Prepping

Its been raining a lot, so our tennis court is full of water so we can't meet there. So thanks to my friend Emily, who gave us her birthday money, now we can meet inside this restaurant and the girls can have a snack and prep for their upcoming vocabulary test on Saturday!

Full stomachs!

He loves embarrassing the girls and ruining their pictures.

August Food Donations

The girls received their food donations for their families from their supporters at the GoFund me page. Its funny to watch them pile up and sit on each other and their food bags as they head home. 

  

Rashed and Kamrul grabbed the food for them the night before since it takes a few hours to organize in the bags. The girls show up the next morning to pick it up.

Our junior surfer boys are amazing and they always come over to help load the food bags and escort the girls home to make sure they have the help to carry the bags up the hill. 

Goodies!

A while back the surf club received a message from a woman in Australia named Josette, she had seen a video of the girls surfing and showed it to her 10 year old daughter Poppy. Both her daughters are surfers and part of a team at school and Poppy felt inspired to do something to help. They sent rash guards with the club name and leggings, some rash guards for our boys and other fun gifts for them. The kids were blown away that a 10 year old girl would want to do something to help them:)

Enus wearing his "Santa Cruz Junior Lifeguard" shorts, thanks to my amazing friend Laura who sent them with me. This was a pretty big deal for them to show them pictures of kids in California that are participating in lifesaving trainings and competitions.

Already putting their new outfits to use, they didn't waste time jumping in the water. They were easy for all of us to keep an eye on!

I'm Back!!!

Made it back to Bangladesh after a much needed break in California with my family and friends. Went to the beach to bring some of the goodies that people sent back with me, my friend Tamara who visited last year sent the girls some nail polishes. They went crazy over the colors, and painted their nails at the beach, despite sand that was flying everywhere in the wind.