Dear Father

All our very best wishes for a happy and healthy year for you, your family and the members of your community, I feel we have not been in touch for a long time so you may not know that Jim returned to Bangladesh at the end of August, I at the beginning of October. We are living at Srimangal in the pleasant surroundings of the British Compound; it belongs to the Department for International Development. This ministry is not sure that it is the sort of place they need to have but there are more important things to worry about so it is there receiving Dhaka people in need of fresh air and recreation for a fair fee. In the past the dozen bungalows have been rented on a long-term basis but there is a shortage of takers so most of them are empty. Jim is working on the Sylhet end of the new/rehabilitated Sylhet to Dhaka Road. The Dhaka end started a good six months ago, this end is just getting its act together for the imminent real big start, the offices are finished, the machinery is being brought and more importantly and one could say with more difficulty, the people are gathered to do the job. Jim works for a new British firm that has great difficulty getting an expatriate bridge engineer but also local technical people of the right calibre. He looks after three contracts, one the contractors are Bangladeshis, one they are Indians and they are Chinese one the third one. He enjoys this variety of contacts; in a way the Chinese engineers are the most impressive as they are a young team working in a foreign environment with great enthusiasm and competence. It appears that it is the first contract won by that firm in Bangladesh so they do not have the benefit of experience gained on other jobs and it is clear that the firm cut their profit margin to win it. 

We are in the middle of the tea estates, the air is pure, and we are surrounded by lovely trees and flowering shrubs and very close to the Lowacherra Forest Reserve. The latter provides us with lovely walks as we had one last Friday. As the forest around here any way is very thin along the road one quickly comes out of it, having done that last Friday, we went along new pineapple plantations, and then tea gardens, then we got back in the forest, walked along the railway track, the main line from Sylhet to Dhaka. As we were getting near to closing our circuit we heard the shouts, the barking of monkeys. Originally we had hoped to see them at the beginning of the walk as we had been told they came out, to be admired? to find out the latest news? at 9am. We did not believe that monkeys, Bangladeshi or not, could be that punctual. Without being unkind one can even say that punctuality is not a national characteristic. Anyway this family/tribe decided to have their public concert at a quart past ten on that particular Friday. The noise was impressive, one would have thought they were at least a couple of dozen to produce such a racket but at the end we saw only two of them, quite big, one black one and one brown one. It was interesting how one of them would start the chorus, it would go on for two minutes or so; there would be a silence and the shouting would start again for the same length of time. The rest was needed for the players and the audience. In that part of the forest there is a Khasi village of about eighty people. We were told that most of them are Catholics, a few are Presbyterians. A few Muslim Bengali families also live in the village. The whole community lives on the cultivation and marketing of the pan leaves. Someone told us that their part of the forest is very well managed. It seems one does not have to worry about them getting out of work for a long time. I read in the Daily Star that one of the consequences of the military build-up at the Indian-Pakistani border was the decrease in smuggling, pan leaves were among the victims and the price of that commodity had shot up in Pakistan. Something else to worry about. Here is Bangladesh we are apparently winning the battle against plastic bags, they have become the enemy No1. I cannot help thinking that corruption and mismanagement of resources would have a greater cause to direct one’s efforts, but I recognise one has to sharpen one’s fighting spirit on something relatively manageable to start with.

In December I went to England for three weeks and Jim for the three days of the Eid holiday to see his mother who has suffered a severe stroke. Her life is not in danger but she has lost her independence and will have to live in a Nursing Home when she comes out of hospital as she cannot be cared for at home. We saw our two children, the close family and could contact our best friends which made easier to be here on our own on Christmas day, having returned on 22 December.

We hope you are receiving some good news from Bogra and all the missions we know in the north west of the country. We do miss those wonderful contacts more than I can say. We know one cannot replay the past and though there are some missions around here we have not tried to make contact. I expect we will one day. Sister Giulia gave us some addresses of missions in the area and we will use them. We also miss not seeing her and all the sisters at Mirpur and Monipuripara and the sisters at Assad Gate. In October I heard that Sister Rosario was back in Boruakona but her rare journeys to Dhaka were easier as she can spend the night at Mymensingh. When you are in contact with the fathers or sisters we know, give them our very best wishes, tell them that we remember their warm welcome and hospitality and we miss them.

I hope you are in excellent health and are getting lots of satisfaction from the work you are doing. Genoa is on our itinerary when we will enjoy a life of visiting friends and places we have thought of for many years.

With our best wishes and love, Jim and Suzie.