I’ve been spoiled by good bread.  When I was growing up my mother would bake bread almost every week.  Everybody who visited for dinner or something would compliment my mom on the good bread but it was something I took forgranted.  One year my Uncle Dan’s Christmas story was about his quest to find good bread in Washington D.C.  It was interesting, but at the time I couldn’t really relate.

I went off to college and didn’t eat much bread.

After graduating in 2004 I went to visit some friends in Europe.  The first day I ended up eating in a bakery/cafe just outside Brussels that had these huge loafs of artisan bread.  It wasn’t something I had seen before, and the bread was wonderful.  Since then I’ve found several places that a little closer which are similar, but they fascinate me.

A few years ago the Independent weekly put out their food issue with the title, “The rise and fall and rise of good bread”.   An interesting issue which sat on my desk for a long time, it had different peoples stories and their experience with bread.  My favorite article was by David Auerbach who ended up making several bread ovens in this quest.  That sounded really interesting to me, so I started thinking about making a bread oven.  I didn’t really have really have the space or felt like I would use it enough, but I filled it away in the back of my mind.

In Bangladesh there isn’t much in the way of wheat.  It’s one long term goal of MCC has never been very successful with.  The best bread that is available is tandori rutti or nan and that’s just considered a snack.  While designing the workshop and house I started thinking about a wood fired oven.  Austin and Daniel started also started thinking about it independently.  So a few weeks ago we had everybody out to the house and had a oven making party after another saturday and a few mornings this week we wrapped it up.  I put some pictures of it up on flickr.  Asha kori ektu pore khub bhalo ruti hobe –  I hope there will be good bread soon.

or Digital Bangladesh – why my computer is in Hanoi

Ethos, according to The Oxford English Dictionary, is defined as “the characteristic spirit, prevalent tone of sentiment, of a people or community; the ‘genius’ of an institution or system.” The current ethos in Bangladesh is that of “Digital Bangladesh”‚–what Bangladesh needs to be a modern thriving country is to be Digital. So when I read the paper every day I see the new policies which the government is implementing as part of the new “Digital Bangladesh.” Some of these ideas seem noble and others just seem to be off the deep end.

I’ve mentioned the power problems in Bangladesh. One thing the government tried to reduce electricity consumption was to implement Daylight Savings Time. Seems simple, change your clocks and take advantage of longer days. It hasn’t gone well. There are many reasons for this, but mostly because it wasn’t really understood. The first problem is that some people didn’t change. Others, like the bus companies, changed their clocks but also changed their schedules so there was no real change. The remainder actually moved their patterns forward, but the end result was confusion and people started asking whether events would take place at “Digital time” or old time. However, even asking that question wasn’t a guarantee of success. Buses and meetings often start an hour late. Our office in Bogra changed our clocks, kept with the government schedule and after a few days of confusion things were sorted out and seemed to run relatively smoothly.

Aside from the logistical challenges, another problem is ‘Digital time’ isn’t so easy to deal with in the Digital world. Most electronics keep time based on Greenwich time and an offset and know nothing of politics in Bangladesh. I’ve had to set all my gadgets(computers, phone, etc.) to the Hanoi, Vietnam time zone so I can get the “correct” time. Daylight savings time was supposed to end September 30, however the Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, was out of the country and as a result the switch didn’t happen. The latest news is that we’re going to stay in this new time zone because they can’t figure out how to move back. With the shorter days this makes 8:00am seem very early for office hours.

In Bogra, we changed our office hours. Ek lafe tal gache ota jae na – One doesn’t climb a palm tree in one jump.

I have returned… returned to the States and now back to Bangladesh. Going back for Michael and Rachael’s wedding was a really nice vacation. They’re now happily married and moved into their new house in Lancaster. Derrick and Rebecca also recently bought a place in Harrisonburg and I was able to visit that as well. I did lots of shopping, drank lots of lattes and spent as much time with as many people as is possible for this introvert. It’s odd but Bangladesh seemed like dream while I was there and now that I’m back the visit doesn’t seem quite real either. I’ve heard it takes a day per time zone to get over jet lag, but using melatonin seems to make the switch quite a bit faster. So the sleep schedule is back to normal.

There have been several changes while I was gone. Dave, who was part of the SALT program, finished up his term and headed back to the states. Arriving back, the MCC Guest house in Dhaka, or “Bat Cave” seemed very empty since Sarah who working with the Peace program had also finished up her term. And while we can’t replace her, we’re looking for someone to fill her Position

One small change that happened while I was gone Rishi, our office driver here Bogra, turn a prototype tank outside the office into a nice little fish pond by adding some rocks, water plants and of course fish. There are even a few small eels. There wasn’t an aeration system and the fish started looking like they needed oxygen, so I hooked up a little aquarium pump we had to do some wetland research and Rishi was happy. There are probably other ways to increase oxygen levels without electricity. Maybe a small waterfall made from a hand pump and a big bucket or an old tractor inner-tube with a tap and a pressure valve, but this was what I had on hand.

A change that I was hoping for but didn’t happen is with the new house/workshop. I was hoping that it would be finished, but it’s pretty much at the same place where it was when I left. Almost done but… And the biggest issue right now is electricity.

I used to take electrical power completely for granted. Sure I was a part of the NC green power program to buy green electricity, but it wasn’t something I thought about everyday. Electricity is probably overused on the whole, but as a convenient way of moving energy it’s wonderful. That said, I’m a little ambivalent about electricity because even though it’s so useful, unfortunately the first thing that often comes with electricity is the Television. Actually it often comes before because it’s often run from batteries. So it’s a little disheartening that we’re so dependent on electricity, but without fans things can be pretty miserable. Everywhere I’ve been in Bangladesh has either inconsistent power or none at all. If you do have it you should be grateful because you’re part of the 38% of the population which has access to electricity in the first place. If you do have power it’s probably going to go out every day, because the power grid is 30% oversubscribed so rolling blackouts or “load shedding” happen when production is insufficient. The general problem is that Bangladesh is too flat for hydro, doesn’t have enough wind for turbines and solar is _really_ expensive. They’re doing a lot with Bio-gas, generating methane from cow dung, but that’s still pretty small. Most of their power is currently produced from natural gas, but aside the problem of burning fossil fuels, it’s very likely they’re going run out in a few more years, one professor at the University of Dhaka said it could be as early as 2012.

Which brings us back to this construction project. We either could get power from the grid or produce it on our own. On the one hand there’s electricity in the village… but the current transformer is overloaded and a new power line is needed. On the other hand we have this inexpensive generator that I bought a couple months ago for running tools. It’s a Bangladeshi generator belted to a Chinese made Diesel engine, fairly large actually… but it’s producing dirty power and making things burn out. Rock meet hard place.

All this makes the Dilbert cartoon from a few days ago quite relevant and very amusing. I sometimes feel like there’s this shell game that gets played with resources. We, self included, play games moving around labor, energy, and materials and hope we’ll end up with working systems without having to pay the price. Bidudh nei, eta boro shomosha. No electricity, it’s a big problem.