Getting to know the 'hood

Last week, the British girl I live with and I, got followed home by two street children. We had been shopping in Meena Bazar aka the grocery store, and two young children were peering at us through the shop window, excited to see two ‘bideshis’ (foreigners). They waited for us outside and started chatting away to us in Bengali all the way down the lane. Even though we didn’t know half of what they were saying, it was love at first sight. The eldest must have been about eight years old and the younger one was only about four. Shoeless and happy, full of life. I adored them. My heart ached. As we approached our gate, they were still lingering around so we gave them a chocolate bar we’d bought. You have never seen so much delight on a child’s face. They were so chuffed and munched the whole thing in seconds. We waved them goodbye and walked up our stairs, looking behind us to see their chocolate covered faces peering through the gate, smiling...
Over the last few days, I’ve been looking for them on our walks through the neighbourhood. Each time we pass the grocery store, I'm waiting to see their little faces. I feel disappointed when I don’t see them. I can’t help it.

Then, on Friday evening on the way home from work, we bought some children's books off of the best salesman ever; a boy about seven years old, with full-on attitude. He was even wearing a gold chain. Classic. How could we say no? Haha. We were'nt sure what we were going to do with the books but itwas only a few taka so we'd hadn't spent too much money on them. Later that night, as we were walking past the grocery store back in Mohammedpur, all of a sudden I felt a little hand grab my top. It was one of my boys.

We asked him how we was and he started chatting away, then the other little one ran over, followed by two more friends. The British girl suggested we give them the books we'd bought and as we pulled them out of the bag to give them to the boys, I have never seen four children so excited, happy and grateful in all my life. Smiling, and jumping around, they beaconed for us to come over to the street vendor on the corner, an older woman, making chapattis. We walked over and she was also overjoyed that we had given the children books. Now, I’m not sure of the relationship between the woman and the children, perhaps she keeps an eye on them, gives them food? Regardless, we were now in the middle of a furor of excitement and the woman insisted we have some food with them so we hung around the corner, eating chapattis, mixing with the locals, with the kids running around us in circles with their new books. After a few minutes we realized that a crowd of about fifty people had gathered around us. Seriously. I think we must have attracted attention because it was a combination of two foreigners, eating food on a street corner with street children, and also the fact that we were interacting with the people of the neighbourhood, something which foreigners don't seem to do here that often.
After our food, we continued to mingle for a short while and then said our goodbyes, walking down the lane to our flat.
I felt happy. It was only a moment. But moments like were the reason I was here. Pure and simple.