It's an Escape

I've been  busy.  These past few months since I've moved to DC my life has been frenetic.  I'm putting my back into my job which is a whirlwind of acronyms and email protocol to remember.  Trying to met new people in my city.  Putting myself in awkward situations to see if I can meet that kindred friend I know is out there.  I've gone on many dates.  I've had a boyfriend, then didn't, then did, then didn't again.  Testing the limits of what it means to be in my 20s.  Trying to quiet my inner narrative about what it means to be a woman and if I'm living up to that.

But when I'm traveling, it all disappears.  The toys, boys, and noise take a backseat to adventure.  Being in a new place makes me giddy and wriggly and at peace.  I have, for two weeks, escaped.

I made time between meetings to walk in the neighborhood around the hotel.  Women carry comically large burdens on their heads.  Their hips sway as they walk down the street as if they're dancing.  I've got to learn how to do that.  I walked into the market and breathed deep the stink of it all.  When you're traveling, dirt and danger seems quaint and character building.  Chickens gawked at me and so did the vendors.  As I went deeper, the market closed in and the eyes got bigger and my followers pressed in tighter.  I thought it was best not to linger.

For dinner, Peter and I ate at a streetside BBQ.  The chicken was roasted over a large pit and the smoke was a thick fog around us that clung to my hair even after I showered.

Tomorrow we will travel to Tabora to visit our field sites.

Kwaheri,
Chelsea

Intro to mHealth

‘One of the greatest things about being in a foreign place is it seems to mock my incessant inner dialogue. 

“Am I doing a good job at work?” 

“Shut up, you’re in Africa.”

“Why won’t he message me back?”

“Shut up there is a woman  in front of you carrying 3x her weight on her head.”

The past few days have been hard work.  I’ve been in and out of conference rooms.  Had meetings at the Ministry of Health.  Waking up early and staying up late for US time zone conference calls.  Because this is not so sexy compared to the rest of my blog, let take this opportunity to tell you about my field of mHealth.

Once upon a time a bunch of scientists were frustrated that basic health necessities were not reaching those in need.  Were frustrated that there is 1 physician for every thousand people in many lower and middle income countries.  And yet, despite not having essential vaccines, Coca-Cola and Samsung made their way to the most rural parts of the world. I saw this in Bangladesh.  Men without limbs scooting around drinking a Coke.  Women with starving children, talking on cell phones.

These smart scientists got together and decided to use this corporate phenomenon to improve access to improved health care.  Check out this site if you would like more information: healthunbound.org

Which brings me to my work here in Tanzania.  I’m working to help facilities prevention mother to child transmission of HIV by using mobile phones to consolidate all patient information onto one database, help remind mothers to take their ART and to come into visits, and to make sure infant HIV status gets to the mothers quickly so the infant can get treatment as soon as possible.

We’re implementing a trial with 10 health care facilities in rural Tanzania for 6 months.  I’m here now to get all the partners together, draw up contracts, and to get the project off the ground.

I’m like a sexier, corporate, Indiana Jones.  With cell phones as my lasso and contract agreements as my safari hat.

Ok?

First time in Africa

It has been a year and three months since I left Bangladesh.  I’m now living in DC working for the United Nations Foundation.  It’s satisfying work and I’m learning an enormous amount but its office work and sometimes I want to trade in my desk for my motorcycle and go back to the fields.  When my boss told me on Thursday I would be leaving for Tanzania on Monday, I audibly squealed.  This is my first big girl working trip.  I am going to Tanzania, Dar es Salaam, for 11 days.

Flying into Dubai is flying over a never ending desert, interspersed every so mile with a white house.  And then the city rises up like a sci fi novel.  The steel buildings reflect the gold sand and sun making them shine like Olympus.

The airport is hedonistically glorious.  The best perfume, clothing, accessories, and then there are women in Burkas looking at me from behind their veils, making me feel guilty for feeling guilty for feeling guilty.

I arrived at the Dar gate.  Although nothing could be as overwhelming as being 19, alone, in the Kolkata airport during the H1N1 scare, this was pretty close.  But I’m like the visa mafia and know how to work a passport like nobody’s business.

Rule 1: Never wait in a line if you’re not explicitly sure what it’s for and if it’s necessary.

Rule 2: Make friends with an official by using the few words you know in his language liberally.

Rule 3: Stick to your passport like it’s your lifeline.  Follow it with your eyes.  Follow it with your soul.

In no time, I got the visa, and was hired by a cab (how it always feels) and rode to the hotel.  When you’re a little girl, and you were playing pretend NGO worker, dressing up in your tevas and perfecting the sloppy expat bun, you dreamed of Africa.  Since then, you learned that there are many other countries in other continents that desperately need help.  But Africa was like your white wedding fantasy.

And I’m finally here.

Shesh

I had dinner with Rebecca last night.  We ate pizza on her balcony and drank beer.  We didn’t have on Salwar Kameezes.  I have been in the US for 87 days.  Probably had 2 large pies worth of pizza and well, a lot of beer.  But sitting with Rebecca brought it all back.  We were sitting in the back of the bumpy JiVitA vehicle on our weekly 2 hour drive to Rangpur.  Stomachs sick and knuckles white we leaned in and talked about warm Baltimore summer nights, pizza, beer and wine.  And at this table we talked about rick shaw rides and streetside samosas.  Rebecca is going back to Bangladesh to finish her project and leaves in a week.  I’m jealous.

But not too jealous.  I’ve started my real life, for the first time in my life I’m not in school!  I’m a fully functional unemployed adult.  Every day I put on heels and have meetings, or curl up somewhere and apply to jobs.  I’m looking for another job that takes me back across the world.  Looking into being a program coordinator at a refugee camp.  Annnd every other job that’s listed ever anywhere.

In the meantime I’m living in my house with my great roommates, going out to dinner with friends, visiting my boyfriend in DC on the weekend (he’s also in international health and understands my curry-eating ways), and enjoying being back in grocery stores that feel like Noah’s Ark.

But sometimes, I miss the feeling of riding my motorcycle through the rice paddies with the low red sun behind me.  Smelling the morning kitchen fires start up and the colorful women and their swaddled brown babies.  I’ll get there again.

Until next time,

Asalam Walaikum,

Chelsea

Last Week in Bangladesh

My last week in Bangladesh has seemed like an eternity. Project is running in the field and doesn’t need my constant supervision. Passing on the reins of my baby to another field coordinator. Wrapping up in-field research. Drinking obsessive amounts of cha. And trying to pass the time so I can go home.

My mom told me to enjoy my last few moments in Bangladesh, to relish it, because I’ll be back and soon realize how good I had it. And I agree and understand that. But ma, that’s easier said than done.

We had an early birthday party for Muzi the day before she left. We cried when we hugged goodbye. I found an amazing woman and we shared so much. We used to joke that one day we would start our own NGO. It’s like fantasy akin to hoping someday to get married. I’ll let you know if it works out.
Rebecca and I have decided to make our last few days a littttle bit more interesting.

We spent our last weekend in Gaibandha so we could have a: WEEKEND OLYMPICS. Everything we did was made into a contest, recorded, and bet on. Card games, people’s reactions and hummus making turned into a cut throat competition. Augustine voted my hummus the best, but Rebecca has so far won all of the card games. It’s close. But it ain’t over until it’s over (tonight right before I leave the country is when one of us pays up.)

My last day in the office my co-workers had a going away “party” (more like a conference) where we all sat around a table, ate mishti (Bangladeshi sweets), drank cha, and everyone talked about why they admired and respected me. It was fantastic. I was given a bouquet of flowers and a heavy brass cup engraved with my name, Jiva, and the dates I was in Bangladesh. I said goodbye to everyone, EVERYONE, and walked home.

For one last time the kids on my block ran up to me screaming my name. This time I told them all “Asen! Apni amar bari jaben!” “Come! You all go to my house!” All of the 20 something kids (and some of their mothers) followed me like I was the pied piper into my small little house and saw the collage I made from all of their pictures. They pointed out their own pictures happily and then turned to me for presents. I was prepared and armed with a box of things I planned to leave behind to hand out. Gatorade packets, fun pencils, Swag blank journals I had collected at the conference, my flowers.






Little Mayisha, my favorite little girl, wrapped her little arms around me and kissed me on the cheek, and looked at me asking if I was coming back. When I said no, she kissed and hugged me again and ran away. I wanted to crumple her into a little ball and put her into my pocket for keeps.

Now we are in Dhaka. We are on a tumultuous tour of all of Dhaka’s hot spots to gather gifts for everyone. I have bought my sister more things than all of my family members (including myself). I am so excited about this. She is so easy to buy things for.

Hailing autos and rickshaws is a lot like fishing. You put your hand out into the deadly traffic, hoping to not get it bit off. There is only a small chance you’ll get something you want. You’ll get a rickshaw when you want an auto, and you’ll always get these creepy unmarked “taxis” offering to take you anywhere you want to go.

Last night we went to meet up with an ex pat we had met a month earlier. Rebecca and I have learned to walk extremely fast through certain parts of the city to help trail off the children who are following us asking for money. But last night we had jumped onto a rickshaw and rode it for a while before a little girl poked her head through the rickshaw back and between our heads asking for money. I screamed so loud. And then started laughing so hard. Which didn’t help because it only encouraged the girl hanging off our rickshaw to laugh back and stick her hand further into our seat.

And so now I’m in North End Coffee. Once last time. We’re going to Computer City to buy some bootleg computer software programs. Then we’ll eat some Bangla food one last time. And then head back to our hotel for some final games of poker to end our epic contest.

I leave at 1am to catch my 4am flight out of Bangladesh.

I’ll update one more time so stay posted.

Asalam Walaikum,
Chelsea

On Science and Faith

Those of you who have read from the beginning started with me in India. I was 19, working in the slums of Kolkata, trying to reconcile my work in the lab with what I saw on the streets. How to compromise the microscope with faith in my mind.
Those of you who have read saw me through Israel. Saw me praying for the strength of faith I saw in the Christians, Muslims and Jews around me.

Science and faith has been a thematic duality in my life for a long time. Sure I’m a scientist and thus a skeptic. We’re taught to be fearful of religion as it is unfounded in evidence (the only scripture of science.) But fear is scary no matter what the origin. And I figure, if I’m going to be in a field helping people be healthy I should try and understand what sustains them beyond the antibiotics. And maybe along the way I’ll find a little faith myself.

Now I’m in Bangladesh with Muslim prayers reminding me of faith 5 times a day. In the villages there are signs of warding off evil spirits on the children’s amulets around their necks and by the ash rubbed on the baby’s foreheads. When the women cannot afford doctor’s visits they visit the local Shaman. And who can blame them?
It’s the big questions, the ones that catch in your throat, that are all around me in Bangladesh. The questions about death and dying. What do you say to a woman my age who just lost her baby?

It’s big and it’s tough and I have no answers. I feel desperate because after death, I believe one’s existence is over. I’m afraid feeling like this will ruin me in this field and make my toothpick faith framework fall down.
I’m afraid because if I fail to save you, you will not live on in another world. I will be here, and you will be gone, and that will be that.

We’re always talking about sustainability. Sustainable programs, sustainable environment.

I want to know, how do I reconcile my own science and faith to ensure that I am sustainable?

What I Will and Won't Miss About Bangladesh

Things I am not going to miss about Bangladesh:

1. The morning dance to keep the mosquitoes from settling on my body. Making sure mosquitoes aren’t trapped in my pants when I pull them up after using the bathroom.
2. The dust that cakes in your eyes and hair and coats your throat just from walking down the street
3. The gaggle of geese that wait for me on my way to work, lower their heads, and charge
4. Dhaal and rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner
5. The noise from the beeping, street vendors, cows, that follows you from the cities to the villages
6. The constant near death collisions from speeding buses heading straight for your face
7. The orna (scarf), that you must wear for modesty, but that traps sweat and is constantly falling off and gets tangled up in rickshaw wheels choking you
8. The pollution and smoke from fires so fierce that your feet are always black and you’re never fully clean
9. The Azaan prayers that wake up all the dogs…and me… with their 4am prayers
10. Being completely covered, head to toe, even in the most brutal summer heat
11. Extremely slow internet
12. The inability to go running outside as a woman for fear of scandal
13. After work, you can go to the market to buy some vegetables, go for a walk along the dusty road, and that’s about it for fun times
14. Not having access to any alcohol
15. Spiders the size of a fist
16. Always looking down to make sure you don’t step in a steaming, fresh pile of cow poop
17. Extreme attention and credence given to hierarchy in the work place and at home
18. Power outages
19. The disease that’s right in front of you, reaching out a hand and asking for money
20. Being so far away from all my family and friends

Things I am going to miss about Bangladesh:

1. Being on a motorcycle deep in the village, with the low sun behind me and rice patties everywhere ahead
2. The deep spicy flavors of every single thing you eat
3. The tiny goats that always getting in the way of cars and that are at once so cute and so tasty
4. Looking out the window of my office and looking straight into the eyes of a bird sitting in the trees just beyond my reach
5. Coming home from the office and being ushered into a house by your neighbors and made to eat sweets and fruits as they sit and look at you and ask questions
6. Leaving my room a complete mess and coming home to find everything neatly in order from Maksuda, our cleaner
7. Having a cook ask you every night, “what do you want for breakfast in the morning?”
8. The sound a rickshaw makes when you are riding one. The creaking of the wood with every bump and turn
9. Sleeping under a mosquito net and being so surrounded by mosquitoes you can hear their collective opera, but feeling safe they can’t touch you
10. Walking around with no shoes on
11. The vibrant colors of all of the clothes
12. Fruits in season. The divine properties of ripe mangoes.
13. The dark orange sun, bigger and brighter than I have seen anywhere else in the world
14. The smell of morning breakfast fires and dusk cha stands
15. The surprise of a cow sticking its head in a window and mooing loudly during a meeting
16. The unbelievable, almost forceful, generosity of all of the people. Especially the women.
17. The children that wait for me on my block and give me the pictures they made in school
18. The children in my study in the villages who now know my name and run after my motorcycle when I leave
19. The camaraderie of my housemates, beautiful girls who make it so much easier to be away from everything and everyone I know and love
20. JiVitA, and how I can go home every day feeling satisfied and excited by my work