Captain David Ring, and his friends came to the Alingan project for the second time on the 4th of June 2017. Despite their busy flying schedule, working for Emirates Airlines, our friends took time off from their busy routines and decided to drop by our foundation to spend the day in teaching and playing with the Children. David brought a lot of books and toys for the children, along with clothes for donation to the kids and their respective families.
It was Anna Marija’s first time in Bangladesh. She and her friend, Michelle were very excited to meet the children. They offered to read stories to the children despite the language barrier. Through sign language and sweet but troubled attempts at understanding each other’s languages, the children and the guests finally broke the ice and took off with a wonderful reading session. They were being read Jack the Rabbit and his adventures with his grandpa. Later they took pictures with the kids and introduced them to the popular social media app, “Snapchat”. The kids had an amazing time checking out the different options and features added to their faces on the photos. Lots of laughs and giggles all around the room! After a session of English reading, it was the children’s turn to test our guests’ Bengali! Anna and Michelle had an amazing time learning some new bangla words from the elementary bangla children’s books and played word games and animal sound games with the kids.
David, on the other hand, pulled out a “where’s Waldo?” book and challenged all the boys to spot Waldo in each of the pictures in the book. With a feeling of competition and an opportunity to impress David, the boys all jumped at once to the book to find Waldo on the page, and surely enough, they found him! The kids were very excited to meet our friends and were so happy with the new gifts that they brought with them. All of them had a new book in hand and were pressing the buttons, and turning the pages, their eyes glazing with happiness and curiosity.
After few hours of laughter and learning and kind donations, it was time for David and his friends to leave, as they prepare for their journey out of Bangladesh. The children bade them farewell; it is never enough for them to spend some quality time with these kind friends, their hearts asking for more time. With hearty goodbyes from the kids, David and his friends left, leaving behind the kids waiting to see them again in the future one day. It was a great opportunity for these children to have an experience of interacting with foreigners, for the first time for many of them. In a way, these friendly meetings are shaping the minds of the children and are preparing them for possible future communications.
