Staycation!

Chris and Kaya recently had a week + one day of vacation to celebrate Eid al-Fitr and Durga Puja. Many of our friends used the vacation days to travel to exciting places like Thailand and Cambodia. We, on the other hand, decided to enjoy Dhaka at its best: emptied of the majority of its 12-15 million residents, with almost no power outages and no traffic. Yeah.

[Note: Of course, "empty" is a relative term. When we decided to go to Pizza Hut for their all-you-can-eat iftar buffet one evening before Eid, we (really only mama) thought it would be smooth sailing. Instead, we arrived at 6pm and were told that there would be a two-hour wait. The guard helpfully informed us that we should come back tomorrow, and to come earlier, like maybe around 4:30pm. For a meal that would start at 6:30pm. No thanks. We went to El Toro instead, where Kaya consumed three full giant quesadillas before falling asleep mid-bite, with a little triangle of tortilla hanging out of his mouth. End of note.]

Aside from that little adventure, Kaya got to spend time doing many of his favorite activities:


:: Lots and lots of swimming, when it was not raining ::

:: Building, building and more building of endless block towers ::

:: Eating Australian food, courtesy of our Australian friends. (Okay, this is a favorite activity of mama's, not Kaya's.) Here, pumpkin soup and scones. Yum. ::

Mama had to spend much of the week working, so Kaya and Dad got to work on several projects together. There are big things underway here in Dhaka:

:: Grow, little plants, grow!! ::

:: The beginnings of a new craze in Bangladesh: cornhole! ::

:: A big pot of liquid, cooling in a tub of ice. You will definitely, definitely see this again. ::

Dhaka Cooking, Season Two :: Season Premiere

Part of the research I did on my last trip to Barisal was to learn more about what mothers in that part of Bangladesh are feeding their babies and young children. It was really interesting to hear their responses and to learn about some of the traditional practices among the rural villages. One thing I hadn't heard before was that newborn babies' mouths are sometimes cleaned out with mustard oil; I haven't quite figured out the reason behind that. Another very common practice is that newborns are traditionally given honey, ostensibly to make them sweeter. They often also get sugar water or animal (cow or goat) milk as their first feeding.

When babies get older, they start eating foods like rice, and they also get suji. As far as I can tell (from my non-extensive googling), suji is semolina flour that is cooked with milk (or, if milk is not available, maybe water) and sugar. The flour comes in a package that costs 23 Taka (about US$0.33) for 500 grams (roughly 1 pound) and looks like this:

This is apparently very popular throughout Bangladesh. Many people have it at breakfast, and it seems to make up a substantial portion of many babies' diets. We had some in the guesthouse in Barisal, and my American colleague commented that it tasted like Cream of Wheat... but, never having had Cream of Wheat before, I can't really say. In any case, I am not really sure what the nutritional value is of this stuff, but it was very sweet and not what I would think would be appropriate for a baby's diet.

Still, I was intrigued and decided to try to make it at home. I never got a proper tutorial in making suji the Bangladeshi way, but I did find this recipe online. I couldn't help but notice that the ingredients -- basically milk and sugar with a starch mixed in -- are nearly the same as this vanilla pudding recipe that I had made just the day before. And like the vanilla pudding, the result was very, very sweet. Neither one of them make me think of breakfast food... or baby food. But, I have to admit, they were both good.

Worlds collide

Here is something that I'll bet nobody else has noticed: today, September 21st, is both the first day of Eid al-Fitr and -- get ready -- Belizean Independence Day! The date for Eid shifts with the cycles of the moon, coming a bit earlier each year, so this will not happen again any time soon. It's double the holidays!! Although, I'm not quite sure how the two celebrations would be combined. A hearty dinner of rice and dal with punta music playing in the background, perhaps??

Barisal, Round 3 :: by mama

I recently made my third trip to Barisal, the southernmost of Bangladesh's six divisions. I was there for work, and it was as interesting as ever: muddy walks through villages to talk with local women, hot afternoons spent meeting with local health workers, and bumpy drives along one-lane dirt roads, dodging livestock and men carrying wood on their heads, to visit places like this local health center.

The fact that is was Ramadan made the trip even more interesting than usual. For example, we had some challenges finding food. More than once, we asked the staff in our guesthouse if we could possibly have a meal, and they gave us the ubiquitous Bangladeshi response, "Oh no, not possible." Hm. Even Muslim women are allowed to forgo fasting when pregnant, but apparently that was not of any concern to these guys.

Also, I got to experience firsthand another interesting Ramadan-related practice. In the days prior to the alarm clock, people were traditionally woken up for their pre-dawn meal by a guy who wandered the streets at about 4:30am, banging on pipes and generally making a racket as loudly and energetically as possible. It supposedly doesn't happen much in Dhaka anymore, and certainly not in our expat-heavy neighborhood, but I can verify that it is definitely still happening in Barisal. There was only one day when I didn't hear him -- maybe he had slept in? -- and that one day was blissful. (Side note: it never occurred to me to get up and look outside to see if he was dressed like this guy, but I now wish I had. That would have made it much more awesome than it was.)

We had originally flown down on the MAF flight, but we had logistical challenges and had to return by launch. [Note: The launch is not a boat. My Bangladeshi colleagues were cracking themselves up, talking about how expats refer to the launch as a boat. They are totally different! Silly expats.] Here, see for yourselves:

Anyway, so the launch involves an overnight river voyage pretty much directly north, leaving Barisal at 9:30 pm and arriving in Dhaka at about 8 am. It has three levels: the bottom level is just a big open space, where people lay out mats and food and whatever else they've brought with them:

The second level is small single cabins, and the third has the VIP rooms. Behold the glory of the VIP room (that would be my own sheet and pillow from home on the bed, because I am paranoid like that):

After a bit of a sleepless night, we arrived to the frenzy of the main launch terminal in Dhaka, elbowed our way out to the street, spent about a half hour on the phone with our driver as we attempted to locate the car, and finally, oh so happily, went home. Ah, Dhaka.

Summer 2009

We spent seven weeks in the States this summer, and I felt like I barely even glanced at my computer. It was fantastic in pretty much every possible way. Family, friends, and muenster cheese: what more could anyone want? To wrap up the summer, I put together this post. It's long, but keep in mind, this is a whole summer's worth of posts all wrapped up in one... so really this is pretty amazingly short. Here goes:


Pittsburgh
Although I cannot claim to love Pittsburgh quite as much as my brother does, I will say that the city has really grown on me over the years. Every time I go back, there is more and more to do. It's especially great for kids, with lots of museums and kid-centric activities, and the people are genuine and friendly. Plus, it's actually affordable. Here are a few things we did while we were there.

:: Kaya got a bike! ::

:: At the Pittsburgh Children's Museum. Look at that hair! ::



:: Going down the Log Jammer at Kennywood. Kaya loved this ride and made Uncle Sinan go on it twice with him. ::


Omaha
Kaya loves Omaha. He told me the other day that if Grandma and Grandpa sell their house, we should buy it and live on the lake forever. These photos pretty much sum up the time we spent there, and why he loves it:

:: The water trampoline ::

:: Tubing: in which Kaya and Daddy sit on an inflatable tube, pulled by a motorboat. I kind of can't believe I let him do this. ::

:: Fishing! Yes, that is a live fish; yes, it survived, if just barely; and yes, Kaya did want to eat it. Again, I can't believe I let him do this.::

:: Kaya and his cousins. Five children under five, spending the summer together on the lake? Yes, Kaya was happy. ::


Portland, OR
I went to Portland to visit my good friend Erica, whom I've known for 10 years now. The best part of the trip was, of course, spending some quality time with her and meeting her now-husband, Nick, but Portland made quite an impression as well.

:: On the flight in, I looked out my window, and this is what I saw. A mountain! With snow on top! In July! For someone from the East Coast, this is pretty darn amazing. I am told that this was probably Mount Hood. ::

:: Rickshaws, driven by hippies. Love it. I don't know which I would rather do: transport this guy and his rickshaw to Dhaka, or bring our rickshaw and rickshawallah to see him in Portland. Either way, this rickshaw looks way more comfortable than ours, despite being a bit bland (no decorative golden garlands and plastic birds??). ::

:: So much natural beauty, so close to the city. ::


Vancouver
In Vancouver, we visited our friends Robert and Liz, who were fantastic hosts and even took days off work to show us around.

:: Vancouver is another impressively beautiful city in an impressively beautiful location ::

:: One of my favorite places from the entire summer was, I think, Granville Island, where our friend Liz generously spent about five hours walking around with me. If you ever need to talk to a local person who has been to every single store on the island, that person is now Liz. ::

:: The beach and Stanley Park, where tourists -- clearly unaware that raccoons are rabid pests who should not be approached, let alone fed and coddled -- have created a population of raccoons who are friendly and diurnal. ::

We also went to Washington, DC and Chapel Hill, NC, and spent time with good friends in both places, but somehow forgot to take any photos. I guess we'll just have to go back next year.

And finally, one more image from the summer, and part of what made the summer even more memorable and wonderful: