“No Wikipedia Day in South Asia?!”, inquired one of our closest friends.
Hmmm … I glanced through the list. There were none.
It was the evening of January 14. I made a few calls and a plan to celebrate Wikipedia’s birthday on 15 January started taking shape within the next 30 minutes.
It was on a very short notice. Still, we were hopeful that many Wikimedians from Bangladesh would be able to join us!
I was thinking about the expenses. My pocket barely had 5 USD. There was no time to ask somebody else, so I turned to the one person every child turns to in time of need, my mom 😃 She contributed 20 USD and now I had 25 USD in total.
Time was running out. Few Wikimedians had already confirmed their presence. We, my brother and I, needed to order a cake with the Wikipedia globe logo printed on the top. All the bakeries declined because it was really late. We were exhausted and losing hope. There was one bakery left and it was about to close. We rushed there. Thankfully, he did not turn us away after hearing that we were students with a big dream and a small budget. He baked us a two pound cake for just 20 USD!
We picked up the cake the next day and went to our venue, Sharabela, that the cafe owner generously offered to us free-of-charge.
One by one, thirteen Wikimedians joined us to celebrate Wikipedia’s birthday. We pitched the remaining 5 USD for snacks. The group spent the next 2-3 hours in laughter and exchanging stories of wiki-wisdom.
More images from Wikipedia Day celebration by Bangladeshi Wikimedians can be found in this Commons category.
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