Bangladesh
Liberation War
While it isn’t a light topic, I’d like to share a bit about the liberation war that gave Bangladesh its freedom from being East Pakistan. Despite the geographical boundary of the large mass of India between them, Pakistan and Bangladesh were originally one nation. In 1957 there was the Partition of India, in which they…
Read MoreTea Estates & Beyond
Part of our trip up to the Northern part of Bangladesh involved visits to ethnic minority schools. The schools themselves were very impressive and the students were very sweet, well behaved, and showed off their excellent math, dancing and singing skills. One of the schools was set on a tea estate. These estates were established…
Read MoreBangladeshi Roads
I can’t help but to share more stories about the roads here. Tales from our road trip up north deserve to be told. I only wish I had managed to think of taking a video clip of the harrowing journey – a short clip would tell it much better than I can! First, the roads…
Read MoreBliss
That’s the name of the spa I went to this afternoon. Before I tell all on our trip up north to the boarder of India I wanted brag a bit about my splurge this afternoon at the spa. Talk about being pampered! An hour long full body oil massage, eye brow threading, herbal facial, and…
Read MoreBeggars in the Streets
It doesn’t matter how much you travel, I think it’s always tough to handle beggars in the streets. The article yesterday in the New York Times mentioned that Kabul has a rise in the number of beggars. It is true that Kabul now has its share. At most speed bumps you will find women in…
Read MoreSweatshops for Women’s Lib
Normally when you think of women working in garment factories, women’s lib doesn’t typically come to mind. While sweat shops aren’t synonymous with social progress, hear me out. Talking with a Bangladeshi woman who spent twenty years helping to lead the very strong women’s movement here, I got a new perspective on the garment industry.…
Read MoreRain, Rain, Lots of Rain!
Bangladesh is not only a delta, but it also gets copious amounts of this. An example was yesterday, when 6.3 cm fell in six hours. This left the rickshaws attempting to ride around in ankle and knee deep water. The other issue is that there are lots of potholes around. The thing is, when the…
Read MoreDhaka Zoo
Zoos are one of those places that people tend to have strong opinions about. In my case, with all of my travels I’ve come to enjoy a great many zoos. Though I’ve been to a sad circus in Russia, I can’t think of a truly bad zoo. I don’t love seeing animals stuck in cages,…
Read MoreMango Vacation
I’m just finishing up my first week in Bangladesh and figured I should surface at some point. I’ve been working over twelve hour days and then coming back to deal with work email. We’ve had no real medical issues, but a ton of health concerns to deal with none the less. It took three appointments…
Read MoreImages of Bangladesh
Hi There, I’ve now been in Bangladesh now for the past couple of days. Just getting settled in with a group of nineteen Afghans on another study tour. It’s been excellent thus far. I haven’t had a chance to explore a great deal yet, but here are a first couple of images to go off…
Read More