The problem is compounded by the fact that many people steal electricity. Officially the Bangladesh power board has only 1,922,361 consumers. The actual number is something else. I was walking home through a village and there was a young man of about 15 or 16 using a long piece of bamboo to play around with some wires attached to the power lines. An older man was walking past and stopped to give him some advice… Make sure you don’t stand in the puddle.

Two emails later I was on a night bus with Daniel down toward Cox’s Bazaar. The actual hospital name is Memorial Christian and has been located for many years just north of Cox’s Bazaar, but 10-13 hours by bus from Dhaka. Last year I went with Daniel up to LAMB hospital when he had a concussion and broken right wrist so it seemed very apropos that he would come with me. Upon arrival I was very quickly run through a consultation before gowning up and getting moved into surgery. I remember being wheeled into surgery. I remember being placed on an operating table. I remember a conversation with one of the surgeons. But I don’t remember anything else until waking up in my hospital bed about 3 hours later, hand in a half cast and slung up in the air.

There’s something odd about post injury. Life slows down very quickly. I spent the next 20 hours mostly sleeping, then resting in the guest house for a few days. We got to have some interesting conversations with hospital staff and even observe some surgeries. Now I’m back in Dhaka, healing, and struggling to type one handed. There’s a project I think I can work on here that doesn’t need too much right hand movement. Aro kerup hote parto – It could have been worse

If you get past those questions though you’ll often get lectured about how Bangladesh is such a poor country and how it has so many problems. The power goes out because they can’t produce enough. They have the twin problems of traffic jams and lots of road fatalities because the roads aren’t big enough and the vehicles aren’t road worthy. Just today I saw a man bloodied and dazed being loaded onto a vangari and taken to the hospital. There’s either flooding or water shortages. It’s often contaminated by arsenic, or bacteria, or pollution. People eat lots of rice, but not enough vegetables so they don’t get good nutrition. Businessmen manipulate food prices. Natural Gas one of the few natural resources of Bangladesh is running out and already there is a shortage in Dhaka which means people end up cooking in the middle of the night. The air is polluted. Dhaka was listed as the second worst city in the world to live according to the Economist. Buildings are falling down because they weren’t built to code. Politicians, public servants and police are corrupt. Facebook got blocked… etc. etc. etc. It’s easy to get overwhelmed, negative and advocate changing everthing.

In the midst of all these problems the challenge is to stay positive and determine what small things that can actually be done. This week I saw the first of a batch of new BRTC buses(the government bus company) that was clean and modern. There are thousands of buses in Dhaka, so It probably won’t last, but it made me smile, and I was reminded how small changes can make a big difference. matha beta hole matha kete phelbo? If you have a headache will you cut off your head?

I spent another day in Kaula Lumpur, however that was mostly a non event.  I stayed out at LCCT and while I did go in to the town center, I didn’t see much.  This morning I camped out in a Starbucks taking advantage of their free wifi.  I’ve been thinking about a redesign of the old blog for a while now, something a little more minimalist and this seemed like a good way to use a slow morning.  I’ve been reading Dive into mark and I’m liking a lot of his thoughts, especially things like Simplicity is hard lets go shopping.  So I started hacking this morning and by check in time I had something that looks like his site, maybe too much, even if it is the MIT license.   I’m not sure how important blog design is these days, I mean I use RSS feeds for most of my friends blogs.  It’s fun to have something that looks good though, or at least that I think looks good.  If it doesn’t look good, well, stop using Microsoft explorer, or let me know.

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.

In general there are 3 kinds milk in Bangladesh.  UHT, powered and fresh.  UHT is the Ultra-high temperature processing which allows milk to be kept at room temperature while sealed, powdered milk which I think most of us are familiar with, although it still has the fats. Fresh milk, comes from Dudh wallahs, or milk men, who go around on their bicycles with a plastic bucket full of warm milk.  Milk power seems to be taking over the market to the frustration of people milking cows.  My coworker Jodi tells me that it has to do with the high food prices in 2008 and the government started allowing the import of powered milk.  Apparently a lot of rejected milk power from other countries gets imported in bulk and repackaged in Bangladesh.

I tend to drink a lot of milk in the US, but in Bangladesh I only use milk in things, like tea and coffee or cereal.  The problem with UHT and powered is the taste, and the problem with the fresh milk is that it get’s watered down.  When I went to LAMB hospital in Dinajpur a few months ago I was thinking through these issues.  Latometers are a common way of testing the specific gravity of milk and by extension quality.  I got to talking to some of the staff there some of whom have been in Bangladesh for a very long time, wondering whether introducing lactometer’s would have any impact on the situation. The first observation was that the word for accountablity doesn’t exist in Bangla.  The second was that in the old math education curiculum was the following math question.  If you have enough milk for 4 customers, but have 5, how much milk do you need to add?

Bogra is famous for it’s sweet yogurt or mishti dui as it’s called. Daniel makes his own yogurt and was having problems getting it to set because of the water.  He started using UHT milk and that sets up well, but he asked an old dui maker how to find good milk. The rather disparaging response was that it was all bad.  Jeamon manush, teamon dudh – As the people, so the milk.

The wedding was in a village outside of Jaipurhat. To say it was surreal is a bit of a understatement. It felt at the same time like and unlike like going out to a concert in the US. It starts by everybody vamping before going out. Then tea stall hopping. Then everybody is on their phone trying to figure out where the party is before the actual event. At that point we got picked up by the party bus. Ah ha hush that fuss everybody move to the back of the bus. That’s where the first band was playing.

It was a loud, long evening. We didn’t leave for the wedding until like 9 in the evening and it was well after midnight before I got to sleep but it was a good time.

Here are some pictures I took at the festivities.