While Jan was at the wedding...

 ...I went for a day trip with my landlord to his family homestead which is in mango country. In fact, his family owns large gardens of mangoes.
 We left early morning so we could enjoy a relatively cool walk among the trees. (about 90 in the shade)  I wished I had brought a pencil and pad so I could get all the different mango names straight. The sweetest type is the 'nengram' (lame leg mango) which gets its name from the bent stem. There's 'fozli' and I don't know where that gets its name from, but they are huge and will fully ripen a little later.

Here's Durul, my landlord in front of his family home. His brothers still live here.  He lives in the city now overseeing his building an various projects and businesses.
He is never far from his cell phone. I've never met anyone who literally carries his office with him and does all his work by phone, even here in the far reaches of rural Bangladesh.


His father built this mosque right near the home. It serves as the place of worship for the neighborhood. The building was completed the year before his father died. It's beautifully tiled inside- Durul's work.

Here's what we packed for the trip home.

 And on the way, we stopped to see one of the seven wonders of Bangladesh: Date palm trees never have more than one 'head'  (just like cocoanut trees) This one in his home town has 14 heads! There's nothing like it anywhere else that he (or I) have seen!

A Bengali Wedding

A Bengali Wedding--bursting with color--  brightly colored saris,  long sparkly earrings, glimmering bangles, shimmering eye shadows, freshly painted designs on the floors and walls,  blinking miniature lights...    And the food---heaps of fragrant pulao and spiced meat,  and of course the ever-present mishti (typical Bengali sweet) and sweet- yogurt. 

 Families gather from near and far.   No putting them up in hotels...if there's floor space, there's room. And if there isn't room, they'll make room. ( I woke up to find 10 women and girls sleeping side by side on the floor in a 6x8ft. space). The cooking fire in the outside kitchen seems to never go out...always more food to cook, guests to serve.  Many hands pitch in to help.

Bride and cousin decorating their hands with henna

Getting beautiful together.

 Wednesday, the first day, was the holud (turmeric) ceremony---special foods are exchanged with the  bride and then turmeric spread on the face--and later the rest of the body.

The next day, it's the groom's holud ceremony. 

Finally, on the third day,  the actual marriage takes place. Hours are spent in the beauty parlor getting decorated.  Here the bride is being fed some rice by her auntie, as she will need to keep her strength up for the long day of sitting in her wedding sari as all the guests come to greet her.  At this point the bride and groom haven't seen each other yet. They are still in separate rooms.  Finally, the signatures and the priest's blessing,  and they are declared married!  

Decorated hands--  two real gold bangles and 28 additional sparkly pink ones.

The bride is taken to the groom's parent's home where she will again sit shyly while all the family and neighbors come to inspect her more closely.   This is now her new home where she will live along with the other brothers and their wives and children.  Except that, in this case,  she will continue her  studies at the university where her husband is a lecturer.  (Yes!)