Three days til the Subcontinent

And they will be enjoyed!

So I'm heading to Bangladesh for four months to work on an arsenic in water project. Why? (believe me I got this question plenty from my dad) I've been interested in water issues for a long time--water, agua, h20, THE most basic substance, deeply affects public health, education, gender equality, and so many other issues. If there were one magic bullet for fighting poverty, it would be water.

Dick (Dr. Richard Wilson, a Harvard physicist who is an octogenarian and just wonderful, rather reminds me of a certain Mr. Rogers who you dear Scrippies will of course remember) and I talked first in the beginning of September, after I saw this posting on the student employment website and thought it was worth checking out. My first trek to Jefferson labs was in gladiators and a summer dress, people were taking the French placement next door, it was that full-of-hope-new-year-fresh-fall kind of feeling. Dick told me about the project, we talked for about two hours about water and Chernobyl and other things and I left fascinated.

After a couple of months of indecision, I decided to go. I would probably never again get this kind of fully-funded opportunity to work in Bangladesh, on a project I really liked, for four months without the worry of a job or family.

And so started the meetings with Dick, skype conversations with Dhaka Community Hospital, trips to talk to Molly at the Harvard School of Public Health (sidenote: a sad victim of 70s architecture, a bit like my dear Currier), Bengali lessons, vaccinations and a lot of packing that will still happen, I'm going.

Please follow and comment! I'll try to write at least a line every couple of days when I have internet.

Hugs,
me