Vermont Again

Home once more, and for 10 more days. It's such a joy to be back for a while--I had been missing family, and seeing everyone has been wonderful. I spent my first full day at home alone. I'm pretty certain that hasn't happened since I left home six months ago, and it was a very welcome change. Yesterday I went to the grocery store to stock up on ten days worth of food. I managed to find just about everything I've been craving, mostly involving cheese or chocolate. I also went with family to see the Vermont Symphony Orchestra's summer concert (it's held outside on the polo fields and there are fireworks at the end to the 1812 Overture)--we've gone almost every year for the last decade. It was a very relaxing evening.

Today I'm nursing a bit of a head cold--the same thing happened after I first arrived in Bangladesh, so perhaps it's just the 24 hours of travel not agreeing with me. The travel, on the whole, was not bad. I was even upgraded to first class on my flight from Dhaka to Bahrain. I had certainly never been in first class before, but for one with legs as long as mine, the extra space was highly appreciated! And the food was pretty spectacular, too, surprisingly enough. The other two flights had me back in economy class, as usual, and my trusty iPod met its sudden and tragic end between Bahrain and London. It has been running steadily for four years, so I suppose it was about time. Still, I shall miss it!

The house seems very quiet and empty without Gib, but being here is helping me to adjust to the change. We have a nice big picture of him in the living room, too, so that's here to keep me company.

Cold medicine and residual jet lag are making me drowsy now--it may be time for a brief nap. Hopefully more updates as my time here unfolds!

Homeward Bound

The last two weeks have been quite the whirlwind for me here in Savar. A very big and unexpected blow came with the news of Gib's passing away. I'm very thankful for my friends here, who were endlessly supportive. However, being so far away from home and family turned out to be more difficult than anticipated, so I--after a lot of deliberation--decided to go back to Vermont during my upcoming vacation. I'll be heading out of Dhaka on June 28th, and returning on July 11th. I'm planning on a quiet few days at home to recharge. (I'll probably also end up using that time to eat as much cheese as humanly possible.)


School has been going well, despite recent ups and downs. The course in Health Economics and Financing was really very interesting. We had two excellent professors come to teach that unit; a few years ago both were at LSHTM, but now one is at Hopkins and the other is working for the WHO. Earlier this week we started our final course before the vacation--Environment, Health, & Climate Change. Off to a bit of a slow start so far, but on Thursday we have a field visit planned to see some arsenic mitigation programs in action, so I'm quite excited about that. Hopefully it will prove fruitful--more about that on the weekend.


Lastly, I'll end with a video clip that our economics instructor showed us. It's from a website called Gapminder, and it's a short (and fairly dynamic) discussion about the population growth in Bangladesh. I wanted to embed the video here, but my internet connection is being rather painfully slow, so for now I'll just refer you to the link for "GapCast 5". If you have a couple minutes, I encourage you to take a look...

In Very Loving Memory

Welcoming the Rains

Bangladesh is seeing the start of its rainy season--after a very hot and humid couple of months, the change in weather is welcome. The days are still quite warm, but it usually rains at least once in the afternoon, evening, or night, and it makes the air pleasantly warm and breezy (if not cool).

In other news, we began a new course in Health Economics today. Sounds a bit dry, but the instructor is a very enthusiastic British gentleman and I must admit, he's making the subject fabulously interesting. I'm afraid that's about all the commentary I can offer on the class thus far, but I'm sure you'll also be able to find my concluding remarks here.

I've also recently had a new creature move into my room--I seem to be sharing my space now with a small, gray mouse. Not too threatening in appearance, but when he found he could get into my food drawer he had a field day. He also tried to make a home in--and successfully destroyed--some of my clothes. Over the weekend I purchased several air/water/mouse-proof containers, and my things are all safe now. I've not seen any sign of him for a couple days, so I'm hoping he has vacated. We shall see.

I'm sitting here trying desperately to think of other things to report so that I can put off my reading a bit longer, but sadly I'm not coming up with much. Life is progressing steadily and smoothly (despite slight interruptions by rodents and the like), but not too eventfully these days. So I'm afraid I'll cut this short for the time being, and hopefully I'll have more to discuss soon.

Also, in response to a request for donut pictures: I bought another on the weekend with every intention of photographing it. However, I was too excited about it later that evening to remember my plans--not until I had eaten about 5/6, anyway, and that would have made for a fairly uninspiring image. Maybe next time...

Donuts in Dhaka!

I am exceedingly happy to report that donuts DO exist in Dhaka. And good ones, at that! I went to a bakery called Cooper's a few weeks ago and tried their version (it was more like a bagel with frosting), but today, I found the real deal.

I was in Banani to collect my mail at the American Center (after it had been sitting there for about three months... and thanks once more to everyone who sent things!!), and so I stopped by a nearby bakery, King's Confectionery, for a quick lunch before returning to Savar. They had all kinds of lunch-like pastries, and they were quite good, and I also used the opportunity to get a couple donuts for the road. Now back in my room, I thought I would give them a try, and they are fabulous. I think I will forsake all other food now, and eat exclusively donuts until the end of December.

In other news, Health Systems Management has proved to be a highly interesting course, and our professor is wonderful. I think he may actually know everything. We have our final exam on Thursday morning, so he very generously gave us the day off to study. Now that I've had my donuts (and eaten them too), I think I'd better use what's left of the day more wisely... But this was too exciting of a happening not to be properly documented.

The Frog

Today marks the official end of the 7 week Epidemiology-Biostats module. We spent three hours this evening taking a whopper of a final exam for stats, and now everyone is unwinding to the best of their abilities until our new module begins tomorrow morning. Health Systems Management is next, and I'm quite excited because this subject will be completely new for me.

Not really any other news. They've kept us extremely busy--so much so that I was feeling very guilty about neglecting both the camera and the blog. Tonight afforded me an opportunity, though, when Vanesse and I happened upon this frog (named Rashid, as you can see). He modeled for me for a while, and in the end I had a few pictures that I thought merited their own post.

One Quarter, and Independence Day

It's now the beginning of April, meaning I've officially passed my first three months in Bangladesh. Time is flying and crawling at once--if I consider all that's happened since I arrived, it feels like I've been here a lifetime, but when I think that I've already passed one quarter of my time here, it feels like the next nine months will be over before I know it. In any event, my three month anniversary seemed to merit a post.

I'm now nearing the end of the fourth week (out of seven) of our Epidemiology/Biostatistics unit. We have had one exam in each subject now, leaving everyone quite drained. I have to admit, though, I'm really enjoying these courses. I had forgotten how much I liked math (excluding calculus, of course...), so that has made stats much more enjoyable. Most people are severely hating it right now, so I'm happy to report that I'm not in that camp. And epidemiology is incredibly interesting--we also have some excellent instructors from ICDDR,B teaching the course, making it even better.

There haven't been any more incidents of gastroenteritis lately, which is good news for the students. There have been many complaints about the food in general, however. Some say it's too spicy, some say it's not spicy enough; I think there's too much oil, and everyone is tiring of the lack of variety. Many have taken to escaping to Dhaka on weekends for breaks from the culinary monotony.

An announcement to everyone: I'm not neglecting to send post cards on purpose. I have not been able to find a SINGLE post card in this country. It seems they're just not available. Also, according to another American, the postal service in Bangladesh is not presently sending any mail to America (for reasons that are very unclear to me), so the only way to get a letter home would be to spend $20 to FedEx it. So, for both reasons, I haven't sent anything. I will try to think of a way to make it up to everyone--what's the fun in having a friend abroad if they can't send you mail?

The weather is getting progressively hotter, and I finally feel like I have adjusted. It is currently a very comfortable 84* F in my room. The rainy season is a few months away still, but we have had a few preview thunderstorms. At this point, I can say that I'm pretty excited for the monsoons to start, but the novelty will probably wear off quickly if the sun is absent for too long!

I don't have much else in the way of news, so I think I will end this post with a few pictures from Independence Day celebrations in Savar. Several of the students went to the independence monument in Savar last week on the holiday (March 26th)--just about everyone in the country has the day off, and thousands of people visit the monument. As we found out, a group of foreigners in the midst of all the nationals can attract quite a lot of attention. We were there for about 45 minutes, and every time we paused for more than a few seconds, we were surrounded (literally) by hundreds of staring people. Now imagine what happens when we all line up for a group photo (seen being taken by classmate Arif, who stayed with me the night I spent in the hospital)...

And here are a few shots of the monument itself:

And here's Vanesse and Yuko getting Bangladesh flags from Naznine (another national student):