Mango 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 to confirm the diagnosis of fatigue! I think we’ve set a record of fourteen appointments in the first week of a study tour! It’s pretty normal for health issues to suddenly surface when someone else is paying the bill. Our insurance only covers illness and injury, but many medical issues that are chronic are also hard to say they aren’t currently an issue either. It isn’t very often that someone comes to you me asking help to get their teeth pulled!

Enough about that.

One of the cool things here in Bangladesh is that they have a specific vacation period for mangoes and jackfruit. They call vacation for an entire month so kids can eat fruit to their heart’s content and adults and visit family and friends to enjoy the fruit together. Now that is my kind of vacation.

I’m certainly not on vacation these days but I have been enjoying my daily dose of mangoes. I made it out today for a few hours at the local market. The participants bought out the sari store with one guy buying fifteen pieces for his female family members. He spent his month’s salary on them.

I picked up a set of nice pearl earrings for a dollar, just because I couldn’t resist them. Might have to go back for more. Pearl strands of necklaces for around ten bucks. Pretty incredible.

Other than today I haven’t gotten out much. The weather has been much more mild and dry than I had expected, so that has been nice. Still waiting for the monsoons to hit!

Cheers,

Miel