Christmas in Dhaka

Happy Christmas everyone!  It's sort of hard to realize that it's Christmas here, with it being in the 70s, but holiday celebrations have definitely been going on in full force over the past few weeks. I've been fortunate to have been invited and enjoyed a few of these celebrations. One of my favorites was a rooftop party that involved sky lanterns, something I hadn't experienced first hand before. It was pretty spectacular lighting these lanterns and watching them lift off and fly into the night sky. Here are a few pictures:

 At the American Commissary I came across a little Christmas tree and some lights, so I did manage to put some holiday decorations up and get into the spirit of the season. Cornelius donned his Santa hat as well. :-)
Happy holidays!

Victory Day and my Bengali vocab

The past few weeks in Bangladesh have been interesting. I've started taking Bengali language classes, I've experienced borderline "cold" weather here in Dhaka, and I've experienced the national "Victory Day" celebration..

Unfortunately, my Bengali vocabulary has grown to include words like "butcher" and "noose" - not words I necessarily expected or planned on learning - due to the ongoing war crimes tribunal here in the country which is trying criminals from the war of independence in 1971. On the other hand, I can point rickshawwallas in the right direction, count to 15 and ask all the typical sorts of simple questions.

Yesterday was Victory Day here in Bangladesh, celebrating 42 years of independence when Bangladesh defeated the Pakistan army in December 1971. The day was a nice break from the typical strikes and political rhetoric surrounding the upcoming elections and one of the features of this fun day was a Guinness World Records' record setting of a flag made by the greatest number of people. Pakistan, appropriately, held this record until Bangladesh broke their record yesterday. Here is what that flag made up of over 27,000 people looked like:

Everyone has been selling flags and people have been getting the spirit of Victory Day; I watched a documentary made during the early 1970s that documented some of the student groups and other grass-root organizers who helped fight for Bangladesh's independence. India also commemorates this day, as they were part of the campaign trying to oust Pakistan from Bangladesh, then "East Pakistan".

A roof with a view

I recently decided to check out the rooftop of our new building here in Dhaka and discovered that we have quite a nice view! On a different, but somewhat similar note, I've discovered that Bangladeshis seem to love their rooftops. They go up there to dry their clothes, to sit and read a book, to watch the sun set or just to sit and ponder life. In the early hours of the day and around sunset you can find people sitting or standing (perilously at times) on their rooftops, overlooking the city. I've seen this in various parts of the city and this seems to just be a custom. While I may not be as thrill-seeking or daring as some of them seem to be, I certainly can appreciate the beauty of a sunset or sunrise and think the Bangladeshis might have something here. Seems like a pretty nice way to pass the time to me!

Here are a few pictures of our rooftop:

Moving day in DC

It has been a little while since I last posted a blog entry. I went back to DC for a crazy, action-packed week, which primarily consisted of us packing up, shipping out and cleaning up our apartment.
Though I'm excited to be in Dhaka, I'm going to miss being in Woodley Park - I loved our little apartment and it was the place we called home for 6 years.
Here are some fun shots of our moving adventure last week.

 There may have been more than one package labeled "bookcase" and "books". :-)

This is what our poor neighbors had to suffer through as the movers moved our things out of our place and towards the elevator.

The final push as we emptied out our place.

And this is all that remained - a few suitcases and a few pieces of broken furniture that went to the dump. Farewell #318!

Season of holidays in Dhaka

Shortly after I arrived in Bangladesh, a season of different holidays began. The first was Durga Puja, arguably one of the most important of the Hindu faith, which was shortly followed by Eid al-Adza (the Eid of Sacrifice), one of the most important Muslim holidays. A few days ago it was Diwali, the festival of lights, another Hindu holiday, and Friday this week it is the Muslim New Year, Muharram. And let's of course not forget Halloween!

The hardest one as a vegetarian was certainly Eid al-Adza, a solemn holiday, also known as Qurbani, or "slaughter", during which most families slaughter a goat or cow. Consequently all over the city on this day there were animals that had been slaughtered in a halal way and were left to bleed out. It has deep religious significance and is an important tenet of the Muslim faith, but I made a conscious decision not to go out on that day. I could see enough evidence of it from my bedroom window!

On a lighter note, Durga Puja was full of dance parties and celebrations and Halloween gave me an opportunity to meet more of the expat crowd here in Dhaka and help pass out candy. I gave out Angry Birds candies and saw some adorable kids.

This was one of the Durga Puja festival sites not far from our place.

Here are a few of the trick or treaters that I got for Halloween.

The kids with their moms and ayas leaving our place and heading to the next stop.

Call for photos

We were recently asked by our donor to provide some photos from the work that we do in the field, in particular through photos that show the crossroads of nutrition and agriculture. I put out a call to all staff members and these were the three photos that came back that we thought were most interesting and representative of the population we serve and of the work we do. I can't take credit for any of the photos but the subjects are all participants in our project and were taken during our work. It's always nice to be reminded of the faces of the people that we're serving!

New fruits and veggies

Over the past month or more, I've had a chance to try some exciting new fruits and veggies from this part of the world. Here are a few of them:


Amloki - incredibly high in vitamin C; very sour!

Amra/Hog Plum; similar to apples and also highly nutritious

Ash Plantain

Ash Gourd

Bitter Gourd; definitely very bitter!

Green Guava; crunchy and not at all as sweet as its pink cousin

Pomelo; very similar to grapefruit but is sweeter, stringier and drier; very tasty though

My first Bangladeshi birthday

I celebrated my birthday this week with a surprise party at work. I happened to share my birthday with the IT guy at work so we got two cakes, two bouquets of flowers and a card for each of us!

Anyway, I felt very loved and it was nice to celebrate my first birthday here with my new colleagues.

A few photos from my first month

Well it's hard to believe, but tomorrow will represent six weeks that I've been here in Dhaka. On the one hand, it feels like it should have been longer, given all that I've done, but the time really has flown.
Looking back at the photos I've taken over the last month or more, I thought I'd share a few of my favorites:

This is a view of the Bangladesh Parliament building, designed by Louis Khan, as I was flying out of Dhaka

 A cat that must have thought it was hiding behind this big plant when I was in Barisal.

 This was at a nutrition training in Khulna - I love the colors and faces.

 This was at a ferry crossing in Patuakhali, in Barisal division in Southern Bangladesh

 These girls were waiting outside a community clinic in rural Barisal

 This woman was measuring the weight of a fish that she had pulled out of the community pond to check and see how their hatchery was doing.

 This little boy seemed not to want to sit down during this community discussion group on nutrition.

 I like this picture of the women in their sarees heading to the pond to check on their fish.

 Just to give you a sense of the amount of water that Bangladesh has, this is a photo I took as we were about to land in Dhaka - you can see how the electrical lines are built on these tiny spits of land.

 This was our 'fan base' as we visited a community clinic in rural Khulna.

More time in the field

I have had the pleasure in the first few weeks on the job to get to travel down to see many of the villages and communities where our project is working. Right before the Eid holidays, we traveled down to Khulna to a few villages in Jessore Sadar to see some of our work.

These were a few of my favorite pictures from that trip.

This is a group of village women that meets several times a month to discuss best feeding practices for their baby and to learn how to grow nutritious food that they can use to feed their families.

This is that same group of women planting some of the veggies that we encourage them to grow.

People typically don't have much land in the poorer areas where we work so they use whatever space they can; this family was using their tin roof to successfully grow a type of gourd we advocate them growing.

This man works as an agriculture extension worker and through his work with our project he incorporates nutrition messages into his ongoing agriculture networks and trainings. The plate in front of him is representing some of the foods that he is recommending that the women incorporate more into their diet.

This baby was too cute - despite all our commotion and pictures, he or she just kept on sleeping, paying no attention to the world. Looks like a pretty good life.

My first homemade dinner and some exciting food finds

I 'inaugurated' our new kitchen last night with typical food from the subcontinent: I made a vegetable jalfrezi (green peppers, cashews, eggplant, tomatoes, onions, garlic and of course lots of spices) served over basmati rice, which I enjoyed with some chalta pickle and paratha bread. (Chalta is a type of sour apple that pickles quite nicely.)

I've been pleasantly surprised with all of the comforts from home that I've seen in the stores here already. Some of it is nice to see, such as veggie burgers, mike & ikes, lay's, spicy mustard, peanut butter, grapenuts and the like. There are also some head scratchers that I have to wonder why on earth are being marketed here (or why they're popular): mayonnaise, tang, mountain dew, processed cheddar cheese and folger's coffee.

Much to Kathleen's delight, I even found an air popper for popcorn here along with halloumi cheese, aged white cheddar cheese and other nice cheeses.

I recently discovered that they have a few American chains here too - Pizza Hut, Domino's, Baskin Robbins, KFC and Gloria Jean's coffee. They also have the South African chain Nando's!

Out of sheer curiosity, I tried ordering from Pizza Hut for lunch today. It definitely tasted like Pizza Hut - they've done a good job keeping their brand consistent! 

Settling in

Well I am now officially moved in and am getting settled in our new place in the neighborhood/district of Gulshan-2 in Dhaka.

 The apartment we selected was unfurnished, so we had to get A/C units, ceiling fans, a washer, stove, fridge and a few other things. Those have now all been installed and the apartment is now fully 'functional'.

I am now the proud owner of one futon (known here as "sofa-cum-bed") and coffee table (which also converts into a computer table, as well as a mosquito net and a small tv which I have propped up on two of the A/C units. Nothing but class for me. :-)

So this will probably be the way things are until our shipment arrives in December or early January. Let's just say I've got a lot of different rooms to sit in if I need a change of scenery.

It's nice to be out of the hotel and to feel like I have a more permanent spot. This week is a holiday week with both Hindu and Muslim holidays being celebrated, so I'll be settling in at my new place, doing some work from home and taking the opportunity to finally unpack my bags!