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. 

a good friend of mine had a few days free, so she came for a few days to visit us in Cox's Bazar. she helped me with class one day and helped the kids with their "H" worksheet.

she took this picture of us walking to the lifeguard tower to class. 

reviewing our flashcards while we wait for the others to finish their assignments.

at the empty lot of motel upal where the girls were practicing their skating and taking breaks to draw.

international beach cleanup

waiting for the rest of the gang to show up for international coastal cleanup.

the kids took the morning off from work to help out.

class

the lifeguard tower we normally use was closed, so when that happens, we do class here! :)

they insist on posing and taking pictures of everything they do. so you will be seeing a lot of pictures like this! hahaha!

learning to write words that start with the letter C.

making flashcards

so our markers aren't very good and after one use they ran out of ink! hahaha! but working on our flashcards to practice with.

classroom

i love this picture of them huddled in what we call our classroom, coloring their flashcards so they can practice at home. we had two surprise visitors today that came with their families to the beach and got permission to come to class with their friends. 

english class

so we don't have a classroom, so the best place for us to meet that is close enough distance for the girls to get through on their breaks from work is in the abandoned lifeguard tower on the beach! ha!

learning to write our alphabet.

afternoons

rashed took these pictures last week while we had the afternoon with the girls. they are getting so much better at surfing, this last time he didn't get in the water, just supervised from the shore.

love that they are helping each other up:)

surfing in her old party dress that she is growing out of hahaha

Beach Picnic

Grilling Chicken legs on a bunch of rocks!

One of the many attempts of jumping pictures. I like that it looks like she doesn't have any legs!

All dressed up in their party dresses!

The Cox's Bazar Lifesaving and Surf Club hosted a picnic at the beach....to me its always more like a BBQ. They set up some bricks and coals and made their very own stoves and brought huge pots to cook rice, chicken, daal, and potatoes! They also rented a sound system so that everyone could dance!  It was the first day it didn't rain so it was perfect timing to be a part of it.

little sick prince

the weather is changing, so just about everyone has had fevers the past few days including this little prince. everyone is taking turns holding him and trying to comfort him.