Razu
On my first day with the children I tried to visit Razu at his old centre, only to find he was not there. Luckily the staff were able to direct me to his new centre. There at another NGO for street children, Inceden, I found many of my old favourite kids, including Razu.

Later that day Razu told me that he had TB. He is getting treatment (He is 3 months into his 6 month DOTs program). It was such a shock, I was hoping that I had misunderstood our conversation, my Bengali being rusty and all. On my next visit I asked the staff who said his health was fine, but yesterday his TB status was confirmed by a friend of Razu's. I think Razu is anxious as Polly (one of the other 6 kids in the visible project) died from TB just over a year ago. Hopefully this is making him compliant with taking his tablets. As if he misses a single day he must start the treatment from scratch, and is more likely to build resistance.

Lovely
Loevly is still working at the same beauty parlour as when I left and is doing well. She works everyday - only gets one day off a month. She receives free accomodation and meals and gets paid about $30 per month. This is pretty good by Bangladesh standards. It would be even better if her estranged mother didn't turn up at the parlour every month and demand that she hand over 2/3 of her salary. Poor Lovely is left with less than $10 a month for spending money.

Yesterday Razu, Lovely and I had a lovely outing to Dhanmondi, went to a cafe, saw some photo exhibitions, met up with their old photography teacher from the visible project and went to a night festival to raise money for the recent cyclone.