Biography 327: If you get burnt

 When working in the kitchen, it's obvious that you will burn your hand sometimes. At that time, I was very new to the kitchen, and one day I burnt my hand. It was my parent's house. So after burning, I stopped working completely and tried to take care of my hand. But I couldn't find any way to make it feel better. For hours, I felt burning in my skin. I had to put my hand in a bowl of cold water. When I took my hand out of the water, it started burning again. Even though the water was at normal temperature, I had to change it to stay calm.

As I couldn't find a way, people who learned about my problem started giving me suggestions. One said to put potatoes on it, another suggested toothpaste (just to clear, never do this; toothpaste will do more harm), put salt in the water, spray spirit (you can spray deodorant or perfume), put Vaseline/gel (again, this is harmful), etc.

I tried almost everything. I found that spraying spirits works like magic. The next helpful idea was to add salt to the water. It helps reduce the pain. The rest of the suggestions didn't work at all.

Utilizing the rainwater

 In Canada, we can collect water from both rain and snow. We have plenty of rainfall and snowfall. Almost everywhere, we waste this water, which is clean and free of cost. We need to make systems and grow an attitude among us to collect, store, and utilize this water. This will be helpful for the environment and will also save some utility bills. Different systems should be introduced to detached homes, apartments, offices and other infrastructures.

We can involve students in their science projects. New ideas can be generated from them. The students will learn more about keeping the environment good and utilizing its resources. Then, the city can take approved ideas and implement them. Our work could be an excellent example for the rest of the world.

Biography 220: Water Treatment.

 When I was about 3/4 years old, my mom went to Saudi Arabia with a government job. I used to live with my father and grandmother (paternal), aunts and uncles (paternal), and their families.

I remember sometimes having stomach pains. At that time, my father used to put water in a steel bowl and put it on my stomach. I used to lay down on the bed with a bowl of water. My older sister liked to see all this and laugh at me. My father said the water would capture all your pain, and you would recover soon. Maybe that worked.

After moving to Canada, I heard some people say their mothers used to put a pot with water on their heads when they had headaches, which always worked.

Is this good, or does it have some scientific explanation?

Biography 114: Water tap

Our school building was two-storied. One day I and my friend Ankhi (Sohana Afrin) was standing on the balcony and talking. From our place, we could see the ground and the front area of our kitchen. There was a water tap over there. We saw somebody didn't turn it off. Water was running.

I was thinking someone must be working near that place and for any reason or just forget to turn it off. They will come back soon. But after a minute we saw it was in the same condition. Ankhi couldn't wait. She said, let's go downstairs and turn off the tap. I replied, OK.

We went down through the stairs and go near to the tap and saw somebody turned it off by this time. I smiled, didn't regret it. Ankhi was saying, "Allah must have given some good points for this action, we did a good job." Maybe she thought I am disappointed with her, but no. It's ok to go downstairs and come back. We were young.

Biography 96: Water bottles

My mom brought a few water bottles for us from Saudi Arabia. She used to give them with us when we were going to those Academies. In Bangladesh, supply water isn't recommended to drink directly. So, we always use to boil the water first. 

Taking water bottles in the Academy isn't a common thing. I remember one day one of my classmates (She was older than me 5/6 years) told me, why don't you bring bed and baggage too in the class. I didn't answer her. Generally, I don't answer negative words. I just don't want to encourage any fight. But they did hurt me. Anyway, water bottles were actually for my younger sister. When they stopped going to the Academy, I stopped carrying them too.

Another day I saw those girls go to the washroom and drink the water. You know, what is the condition of a common washroom can be. So, yeah, this makes me feel a little better.

Biography 52: Water treatment

 When we were living in South Komolapur, Bangladesh, my life was like a tomboy. Both my parents use to go out to work. I was free to hope around our neighbourhood. I don't remember when I use to eat or what. But I do remember many times I had faced stomach pain. At that time my dad uses to put a steel-made bowl on my stomach with cold water. The cold helped to reduce my pain and I think mostly my good immune system somehow rescued me. But I like that water treatment.

 At home, all older seems like that too. I saw them laughing when I was lying on the bed with the bowl of water. I guess, they were happy to see me stuck in one place.

Let the water grab you

Did you ever try this? You jump into the water and then do nothing. You let the water grab you slowly. A very nice feeling isn't it. But then you realize that you have to breathe again, so you have to do hurry and go up to the air again...

I heard this is a great feeling, though I never tried. I don't know how to swim. If I let myself get drown, I will never come up again by myself.

Power of water is its amount

When you hold a glass of water, it has no power, only can fulfill your thirst. If you hold a bucket of water you can feel its weight. And you can throw it forcefully and see it can drawn dust with it. When you see the sea water, you can feel how big the world is. If you put your feet in the sea water you can feel its power a bit too. But to know its big power you have to see tsunami. This can smash towns or countries. It’s the amount. Bigger the amount will create the bigger power. But it can only be seen at tsunami. Otherwise it doesn’t show its power, or don’t know about its power. 

Sea, I like its water…

I don’t know why I like water so much. When I was a kid, my mom said, I used to cry if they didn’t let me wash clothes and clean dishes. I liked those works because I could touch water as much as I wanted. My first visit to the sea was the Red Sea. I asked my parents many times to let me go into the water. They never agreed…

After that, my uncle took me with him to see The Bay of Bengal. Again, he didn't let me go into the water. He was afraid that if anything happened to me, his sis would kill him. But my aunt finally came to help me. She said, “Go into the water, I will talk with your uncle, you don’t have to be afraid of anyone. Just enjoy. I am here”. For the first time, I go into the sea water… What a feeling. On those days, I was studying in class 10.

We have to prepare from flood

My youngest sister's daughter Dia, She was 2 years and 4 months old when the picture is taken.

From our past experience, we have seen whenever India gets effected by flood, after while we have also faced that. Because we all know, all water will pass through Bangladesh to the sea. So, we have to prepare from the coming water. Especially on river barrier, towns, drainage system, paddy fields etc. I think all of us have enough experience of this flood situation. If we stay alert and take necessary steps before the flood we can prevent (in some cases) and minimize its destruction. 

Need to play with water… no matter how tough it is.

Shafeen playing with water, he was 1 year and 5 months old.

Shafeen loves water (me too). But his mom (me) is very strict in touching water, because he easily gets cold. But you know, if Shafeen love something, he will do everything and keep trying to get it until he gets it. So, whenever mom stays busy in other work or sleeping, Shafeen don’t miss that opportunity. Here he is playing with water in the sink with unwashed dishes. Little difficult to rich on it, but Shafeen don’t care.