Dusty Images Revisted

As many of you know, my parents are in the final stages of preparation to move back to Bangladesh. Sixteen years in Maine was plenty of time to see our family photos and keepsakes gather dust in attic boxes. So as part of the packing process, they've been diligently (and probably with both tears and laughter) sifting through the pictures in order to scan and digitize them - both for easier packing and preservation. Every week or so, my brothers and I are delighted to find an old forgotten childhood memory in our email inboxes. We comment on them and try to interpret our facial expressions or personality traits from the candidly captured moments.

We've all agreed that in those early years, an apt description for the "little Christa Marie" of the photos would be "sad and itchy." We have very few smiling photos of me as a toddler/preschooler. Benjamin, on the other hand, was often caught with animated expressions in which he seemed to question the world around him with a primal curiosity. I've decided from the photos that David was the wisest of us. Focused, calm, and collected, he always seemed to know something the rest of us didn't... David now claims that most of the time he was probably just deliberating where to get his "next sugar fix." I suppose we'll never know.

Here are some of the highlights. Enjoy!

Atop the elmira in Ishurdi. We're thankful that our not-so-overprotective mother allowed us those early climbs that would inspire us to later ascents to mountain summits.
My energetic parents must have had killer biceps during those years that all three of us were carryable ages... and always wanted to be carried.
I often wonder whether we were aware in our young childhood that we looked quite different from our friends in Ishurdi.
We were blessed to receive these three-wheelers for romping around the village, practicing for the day we'd mount the real rickshaws...

Fuljan was our helper/nanny in Ishurdi, and I remember the joy of getting to visit her when I was a little older. Even though I could no longer speak Bangla with her, I remembered sensing an indebtedness for the love she'd shown us in our infancy, and the help she was to Mom.
We had some unforgettable years of adventures with the Adkins. Above, we are in Sylet on a vacation from Dhaka. If you look back at my August "Surprise Reunions" post, you'll see a recent photo of Susie and I in the same pose... and you'll notice that besides having grown a couple feet, we look basically the same.
I just can't figure out why in this photo we look (as David apty described it) as if we're at a funeral... Thankfully, I think Yegor Lankin (above right) always had enough silliness to account for the rest of us.