water, agua, h2o

A much trickier beast than I thought.

I'm writing again from Pabna-- it's been a fruitful week in the field. I get frustrated sometimes, but the more I think about it, the more I realize what a tremendous privilege it is to have control over such a project during my sophomore year in college. I expected to assist, to aid, to give my thoughts, but since that terrible day where I lost so much respect for the chairman, it's become pretty clear that I am expected to take charge. And so I wrote the protocols, consulted with experts back in the States and in Dhaka, price-compared fecal coliform measurement kits, considered hauling back boxes of water check vials from Delhi (didn't end up doing that, thank goodness). Tomorrow night I'm phone conferencing with Dr. Wilson at Berkeley and a chlorination expert from the CDC. The two World Bank consultants are visiting our field site on Friday. I'm preparing a brief report for them--three months ago, I would have been irked that I got two days notice for this, but that was then--and making the argument that dugwells and Indara wells, when chlorinated, are a good arsenic mitigation solution. The World Bank and World Health Organization currently only push for deep tubewells in Bangladesh.

It is all coming together. It's a joy to watch the field staff learn and master the water quality tests: they take great pride in doing this. They've started questioning me on why I double the chlorine dose this day, why we are not seeing a free chlorine residual... I don't always know the answers but keep encouraging them to ask. In this country, among a certain class, if the authority says the sky is red, then red it is--I don't want our field staff to have that mentality.


Field staff in Sirajdikhan with the Hach test kit for free chlorine

I'm so thankful for the big picture given by our contacts in the States and here at international centers in Bangladesh, though. It is an honor and an experience to lead this project, but it would be very lonely on my own. There is an astounding lack of scientific expertise at DCH and especially in the field. I connect well with the field staff, but men will still be boys and though they are much older than me, I am still in the role of teacher and supervisor. The water chemistry is challenging and interesting-- to have those discussions with people who can understand the full scope of the problem and give insight is absolutely invaluable. It is essential to have a support network of people who speak your language, literally and figuratively.

Looking back over the last three months, a lot has been accomplished. There are still times when I ask myself, "Why am I doing this? What difference does it make whether 66 wells in Bangladesh are chlorinated or not?" Sometimes, I'm just worn down by it all: being surrounded by throngs of twenty men who just stand there and stare at you for minutes, not understanding the language, forcing myself to understand childishness as lack of education or cultural differences... There are many, many times when I want to do this kind of work in China. In China, the answers to those questions of "why" would be much more clear. I may consider America home for the rest of my life, but my roots are in China and working for the betterment of those people would be only natural. I will need to dedicate at least a summer or my thesis there.

All that being said, though, at the end of the May I will look back on Bangladesh with much fondness and many wonderful memories. In work, I've been given a lot of opportunity and control--I just hope I can say, truthfully, that I've made a difference.