It has been quite some time since I wrote a post... and thought I should share some updates!
I was awarded the Department of Defense's SMART Fellowship for the remaining two years of my PhD!!!!!!!! I will be sponsored by the Army Public Heath Center's (APHC) Entomological Services Program. This means next summer I will be interning at APHC and then after I graduate (May 2018) I will work for APHC for 2 years. Yes - it is so incredible that I know exactly where I will be after graduation and have a government position guaranteed.. but I am still a bit nervous to live somewhere for 2 whole years, in a row, no moving around. That has not happened since I graduated high school! I am up for the challenge and am excited for the opportunity. A change in my academic advisory has also happened as my committee chair/advisor, Dr. Juliet Pulliam, took a very prestigious position as the new Director of the South African Centre for Epidemiological Modelling and Analysis. I am so happy for her and am so grateful that she still wants to continue being involved in my PhD and research. Because of this, we are hoping that I get to spend my Spring 2017 semester in Stellenbosch, SA with her. For those of you who know me well know I am beyond ecstatic about that possibility - I love Africa! Now, most importantly, I am sincerely missing field work this summer... I have my backpacking pack always packed by my door as a reminder to get me the heck outside when I have the time. I keep seeing my Bangladesh posts in that "On This Day" on Facebook and it makes me happy sad. I had such a crazy and adventure-filled summer last year and hope that I can reach a fraction of that this summer. Frederick, MD is pretty incredible and I am so excited to work at USAMRIID this summer... if only I could actually START my work. The paperwork and miscommunications are making me a little nervous about my upcoming government career stint. I know this is just "how it is" but I must say that I have never been one to blindly accept that as an answer for anything. It is one of those things you have to ask yourself... do I walk away or do I dive in to try and fix some of the problems because the resources at your hands outweigh the cons? ANYWAY... I will get off of my philosophical soapbox. I recently attended the 10 day US-CAN Summer Institutes Epidemiology Summer School: Mathematical Modeling of Infectious Disease Spread at Ohio State University - Mathematical Biosciences Institute (MBI). It was so incredible to hear lectures about Metapopulations, R0 calculations, PDE models by the professors who literally wrote the methods on them. It was a bit too "mathy" for me a few times but I guess that will happen when you bring together such a diverse group of people with very different backgrounds. We had group projects during this workshop and I was on the "Leprosy in the USA" team. Though it turned into a somewhat different project than I thought it was going to be, I am happy with the type of analysis I was able to learn and it will be very helpful moving forward with my own dissertation analysis. I am sad to say there was some drama even though we were all graduate students that I thought would be above petty arguments. In the end our presentation was really great and I was happy with my contribution of the maps and risk index models. Wrapping up, my next two years will be a bit hectic with my fall semester being in Gainesville, traveling with Bonnie and seeing family over winter break, South Africa for the Spring semester and Maryland for the summers. I guess that might make staying somewhere for two years straight after all of that jumping around a little easier... such is life. I'm not getting any younger! haha. Well folks -- that's about my fill of sharing. Stay tuned for more clerical updates as I will not have any goat squats or scabies this summer. *sad face*. Some of the maps I produced for the Leprosy project:
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Hello world, Well I have returned from my Malaysian adventure and let's just say that it did not go as planned - but who is really surprised about that? NOT ME. haha I have really grown as a person this summer because being someone who loves planning and organization my patience and flexibility has been tested countless times. Whether it is work, life, transportation or general communication... nothing seems to be easy in these parts. So, it began when myself, Jess and Scott headed to the Dhaka airport to head to Kuala Lumpur. Their return flight had been canceled because of the volcano eruption in Indonesia (they were re-routing flights) so they were told to go to the Air Asia office at the airport -- CLOSED. They were told to just go to the one in Kuala Lumpur airport to buy a return ticket.. hopefully they are open and are able to get back to Dhaka *fingers crossed*. The airport is HUGE and we walk around to go find their tiket kounter (no misspelling) and they get their return tickets, WOOHOO. Find somewhere to eat breakfast and get some local currency, ringgit (RM/MYR). At this point it is about 8:30am and we are ready to leave for the city. A very convenient, albeit somewhat expensive, train takes us 28min to the center of Kuala Lumpur. Now comes the hard part... finding our hostel based on a poorly made map downloaded from their site. Very few landmarks as reference and about 100 streets are missing on it. After about an hour of walking in circles we FINALLY found it... the container hotel. It was EPIC... I love hostels like this. We couldn't check-in yet so we stored our bags there and went to find our way to the Batu Caves. Again, the transportation is incredible in KL and so we hopped onto a monorel (again, no misspelling) and about 20 minutes later we arrived at the Batu Caves. As we were ready to enter you walk by locals selling crafts and some snacks and I see a sign that says "Monkey Food"... so obviously I go there and buy a banana bunch. Right as we enter the gate a crowd of monkeys sees me with bananas and bum rushes down from the side of the mountain... clearly they know the drill. I was picking one banana off at a time and feeding to them -- they would jump up to grab them and even hold my leg to let me know they were there for more food. So, while shooting video of this I told Jess to hand me my camera so I could get a shot of one of the monkeys there with a baby attached... in leaning over to grab my camera, one of the bastard monkeys jumped up and grabbed the whole bunch of bananas I had left! hahahahaha, I was laughing my a#$ off! He knew exactly what he was doing. So then we headed for the painted statue part of the cave and walked a total of 200 steep steps that were treacherous! The paintings and carvings were incredible and I still need to look up the history behind them. Then we were off to the main part of the caves... a whopping 300 stairs up to the caverns. Painted stairs and more monkeys to harass you. The caverns were incredible, though a little touristy for my liking. Monkeys were playing and scaling the walls all while still harassing anyone with a bag that might have food... seriously hilarious. They were even pestering those that came to pray in the mosque -- very peaceful. So after looking around we went back down the 300 steps and on the way down a woman with her two children had a bag with some bananas, soda and water. Well the monkeys decided they wanted it and to top it off the kids and woman were incredibly afraid of the monkeys so she dropped the bag and ran screaming with her kids -- sadly I could not help but laugh so hard I almost peed. One of the monkeys pulled a frat boy move and started to shotgun the red soda -- looked like he had just murdered a small child and drank the blood... absolutely crying with laughter at this point. Scott was nicer than me and Jess and got the bag, with only waters left at this point, to give back to the frightened family. We then headed back to the city to grab food -- found a delicious little Thai place then went to the hostel to check-in. After showers we headed to this helipad turned bar ... yes it is literally a bar on top of a building with no walls -- SO SICK. It was a perfect place to see the sunset over the entire city with the Petronas Towers (remember Entrapment?) lingering in the distance. After a few drinks we just started walking around to find another place to hangout and ran into a friendly local Australian that got us to the awesome downtown area. Landing at his favorite bar, who to better serve us than some Bangladeshis?! They were THRILLED to hear that we had been living there all summer and working, they were really great. Finally around midnight we got back to the hostel and passed on out. I got up at the butt crack of dawn so that I could attend a crossfit class before we went hiking. The gym was in a large mall complex and to my surprise, all men! So different from my local gym in Gainesville. It was so nice to be back in a real gym and let's just say I am in for a rude awakening when I get back to the US... that workout KILLED me - puking would've been a nice relief haha. Arrived back at the hotel and then we left to find breakfast and then it was off to hike Bukit Tabur aka the dragon's backbone. My research told me that the hike is very difficult and some deaths have occurred... same as the Grand Canyon so what the hell, let's go! Scott and Jess did not share my enthusiasm so when another couple was ending the hike as we were starting and said how difficult it was they were like... NOPE. I had the brilliant idea -- let's just do it backwards .. so we did! It was still quite a hard hike and by the time I got up and took pictures the rain was rolling in and sadly by the time the other two got up the rain was pouring and view ruined!!! Going back down was a soggy adventure. Another 20 min walk until we found a teksi and he didn't care that we were soaking... though he sprayed air freshner the second we got out of the car. Another shower later we left to go to the fish spa... yes this is where you stick your feet into a fish tank and they eat all the dead skin off. It was such a bizarre feeling, can't really say I am a fan. You eventually get used to it but still very very weird feeling. Some walking around and shopping for shorts for my later trip (didn't pack any) and eating at a bomb latin american restaurant we headed to find another happening bar. Found a few, all of them have ladies night like every night so drinking was pretty cheap. There were Eid fireworks going off everywhere and it was a fun last night with my friends. Last time I saw Scott as he left for the states early this morning... such a great person. The next morning I left to catch a bus for Taman Negara. It was fairly packed but thought it was just that time of the week for people to head out. 3 hours later we get to the Tembeling Jetty which was lines galore to get your activities booked and get permit paperwork for the jungle. No one told me how busy it was in the jungle village... so I boarded the boat for the 3 hr journey to the jungle. Upon arrival I began walking around to hostels searching for a room and one after another.. booked, booked, booked. After about the 7th one I ran into a Swiss girl backpacking alone as well - Somaya. We decided to team up and keep looking. 6 more later (combined with the ones she had already looked at) -- no luck. We just started laughing at one point because we both have had too many experiences where things just don't work out. We decided to make the most out of it and got one of the hostel's to store our bigger bag and took off for our Night Jungle Walk tour. IT WAS A MAD HOUSE.. there were people jams on the trails and it was so freaking crowded. We were both over it so we took out our map and headed down a trail along the river. We stopped to swim for a bit, it is about 11pm at this point, and it was so peaceful and beautiful with no lights around. We thought about skinny dipping but then I thought about that little fish that swims up your hooha when you pee and passed haha. Once we got out we decided to trek to one of the jungle hides they have to view wildlife. 2 hours or so hiking in the jungle in the middle of the night we reach this hide that actually had wooden bed frames and a kitchen (didn't do us much good). So we settled in and got a few hours shut eye in our clothes using bags for our pillows. However, we woke up in the early hours of the morning because somehow the jungle went from suffocatingly hot to freezing!!! We decided we should just hike around some more to warm up -- this is about 4-5am. Go another hour or so and then take another trail back to the jetty so that we can go to the travel office once it opens. Ask if there are any openings anywhere and they said they didn't know of any -- so 9 am the next morning we were back on the boat for the 3 hrs back to the jetty and 3 hours bus to KL. She decided to move her flight up early going to Japan so I said what the hell I will go to the airport with you, another 30 min on train. I checked my airline for an earlier flight and no luck so just bought another return ticket hoping I will get a refund for my other. I would have spent more money than the ticket staying in the city for 2 more days so it was worth it. So 4 hours later I was back in Dhaka early... but weirdly missed it and am happy to be back. My jungle adventure was not what I expected but I would take that crazy 16 hours over the 2 days I would have spent there in a crowded, touristy nightmare. All in all I had a blast and it was the first time I have traveled with friends (at least for a part of my trip) and my god is that a blast. Traveling alone has its perks and I definitely recommend that you do it at some point, but it was too much fun having Scott and Jess there with me -- I made some pretty incredible friends this summer. Such a deep title for fieldwork you might say... and you are right. This blog post is a result of quite a bizarre set of events that transpired today.
So I want to preface this post with the fact that I have not felt unsafe at all since I have been in Bangladesh... minus the very regular near death on rickshaw experiences. I have even been going out on my own after 10pm (I don't even do that in Gainesville haha) and have felt very safe. However, today after getting home from the field all of us were sitting at the dining table doing work and they were chatting (in Bangla of course) and I thought I heard "tranny" so I asked what they were talking about. They had heard that the transgenders were in our area looking for money. I thought.. "oh, that is so cool that the trans population here is so charitable". Oh no... I was way off base, guess I forgot where I was for a minute. To give this some background, I have to say that due to the predominantly Muslim culture in Bangladesh anyone out of the "normal" (not my words) are not accepted. This includes transgenders and gays... because of the shunning they cannot find jobs. I am not saying this gives them an excuse for their actions, I couldn't even tell you my opinion at this point. The guys told me that if there are children in the house they will grab them and hold them until the family does what they say and give them money -- if not they will take the children and do "not socially acceptable" things to them and to the parents. They are "not shy" so they will grab at the men and be forceful as well. This is a problem not even the cops address because they are "not shy". This paints the transgender community here very badly... they are accepted only because they are feared. OKAY, so about an hour after they told this story, Hossain (one of the guys on my team) started yelling something and two others got up very quickly and ran to lock all the locks on the door. They told me to turn my music off and the other guys shut the balcony door of the front room. Sure enough the transgenders that they heard were around found out that a foreigner was staying in our apt building. It was not hard to find ours since we have about 9 pairs of shoes outside of our front door. It started with loud banging on the door, jiggling the door handle , clapping, and yelling in Bangla to let them in. We thought it might die down but they kept being very forceful at our door so Al-Amin started talking with them through the door (no idea what was said) and they were threatening to make a mess (poop and pee kind of mess) in our doorway if we did not let them in. Finally Emran said they should just open it and negotiate with them (everything here is negotiable). As always I go hide... my room is in the very back of the house but you can see in my door from the main room. I went to my bathroom with my laptop (grab the expensive stuff right?!) in case I had to lock the door. Within a minute Al-Amin came in and shut my main door and told me to lock it as well (there are deadbolts on every door in Bangladesh). After about 10 minutes they were able to negotiate with the 2 people that came and paid them 200 taka. I think we lucked out because Sumit doesn't look Bengali so they thought he was the foreigner... that could have been worse. Not knowing they were gone I was just waiting in the corner of my room like a sissy pants. All of a sudden very loud, aggressive knocking happens at my door. *Pee myself a little* -- It was just Al-Amin being a jerk face and scaring me haha. The guys all had a laugh when Al-Amin told them I was in my bathroom when he came to lock my door. In the crazy, locking my door I pulled one of the locks too hard or something and it broke so I was locked in my room and they had to come through the balcony entrance to break me free. hahahahaha Yes... it was as ridiculous as it sounds. After all of this transpired we all were obviously talking about it and I kept asking questions on why they do that, if the police do anything, if they are accepted anywhere, etc. I asked about how gay people are perceived here and of course "not accepted" was that answer as well. I was a little saddened when I asked if they had met any gay people and they were shocked and said "no way, why would I?"... I responded with "how do you know they are bad if you have never met one?" -- religious and society response. I told them about drag shows, Caitlyn Jenner (olympian who transitioned) and growing up playing volleyball with trans women... they were in shock. Why does the US think we are so much more evolved than other developing countries? We still have people that don't accept others -- I think I have found them a new home. Maybe living here would make those people realize they have bigger problems than fighting the good fight to stop gays from marrying. All in all I finally had a super sketchy moment in Bangladesh and I am extremely saddened at the lengths the transgender community has to go to just to make a living. So the time has come when all 8 boards that oversee various aspects of my research, from both Bangladesh and UF, have signed off on my project. With these in hand I was able to get my research team, 6 field crew members and myself, to Rangpur to setup the house I have rented and to begin data collection. Sounds so straight forward, right?!.... WRONG!
I have always wanted to do international fieldwork and am finally getting to do just that. However, it is not the fairytale dream I had always thought it would be... though now that I have gotten into the groove with my team and the work I am singing a different tune. I pride myself on being able to do every aspect of my own research.... the planning, animal sample collection, the lab work, and the final analyses of all the data. In this case though, due to the language, culture divide, and quick approval necessary for this study, I am only able to do one to two of those things completely on my own. I have to rely on the knowledge of the Bangladeshi field crew I hired to know the customs that are appropriate to follow and how much work can be done in what amount of time. This includes what work can be done during Ramadan... something I never had to take into consideration before. Ramadan is a month of fasting that the Muslim religion practices to sort of reset their empathy button basically. They fast from 3:15am to about 7pm each day (water, food, everything!) to more easily know what hunger feels like and to realize how good they have it the rest of the year. I always knew what Ramadan was but never knew what it stood for nor the rituals that are practiced during it. Living with 5 Muslims during this time is quite the eye opener... I have such respect for the sacrifices they are willing to make for their God and the real world results this has on the Bangladeshi community. This time of year is when all charities push for donations and people are likely donating more due to the empathy reset and all. One downfall to living with Muslims during Ramadan is that there is never food when I want to eat! I take iftar with them (the meal that breaks the fast around 7pm) which usually fills me up -- fruits, sweet drink, biryani or hodge podge food. I am asleep when they take sehri (midnight meal) and there are rarely leftovers for me to use for lunch. I have been subsisting on oatmeal, peanut butter, bananas and instant coffee haha. That is living with guys in general right?! I have never had the opportunity to work with any women in the field so I am very used to working with men and living with them - dude roommates included. It has never been an issue -- if anything they knew I was the alpha dog and always asked my advice or for help. Coming to Bangladesh I knew there would be some cultural differences but would not run into any big issues since I have worked with guys my whole science career. Again ... WRONG. The cultural divide is more of a religious divide as the Muslim culture teaches men and women to stay away from each other. Some of the field members run away quickly when we have to take rickshaws somewhere because they are pretty small and you definitely touch the person you are riding with. I have to keep reminding myself that it is a cultural thing not a personal one. We are getting more comfortable with each other and it seems they are more willing to approach me with issues and not Al-Amin (my middle man basically.. very good english). It took some time to communicate my expectations for the research and how I would like it to be done but it seems we have finally reached an understanding. Having a study that includes surveys from humans, mammal sampling (cow and goat), and also mosquito light trap collections is a lot to take on... especially since I have never conducted international fieldwork, human collected surveys or mosquitoes!!! I found myself being overwhelmed the first week and realized I really am jumping into the deep end. This is kind of an incredible feat for a first year PhD student to take on and I am just now becoming aware of that. Somehow I have managed to keep my head just above water and now I am doing freaking back strokes haha. I still haven't managed to find a way to not feel so isolated in the smaller "city" we are living in but it is on my to-do list. I have to go back to Dhaka to take samples this week and will stay for a few days... it will be nice to speak with English-speaking folks, go to a real gym, eat real food and sleep in a real bed. Never thought I would see Dhaka as a relaxing get-away! All in all I am learning so much and we are collecting tons of data... which is the whole reason I am here!!! Side note in case you don't already know -- I have scabies. haha Not sure how I contracted them, likely the dang cute goats but who really knows?! I treated myself and washed most clothes in boiled water (what a process) but I am skeptical I got them all. We will see in a week if I get reinfested! I sincerely miss working out and have noticed that if I don't do anything (situps, pushups, squats, anything really) I am not a very nice or patient person. I have been working on getting more fitness in... #noexcuses right?! So, if you follow me on facebook you know by now that my card started to accrue some fraud charges just as I was leaving the states... which means having to cancel my card leaving me no access to my personal or research money. NOT very convenient when I am trying to get a research project going and settle into a new place with a whole new dress code. Thanks to my wonderful, amazing, and incredible father and western union, he was able to wire me money multiple times to keep my research on schedule (I can transfer money online, just not get it myself). Because of the world's best dad we were able to make our first trip to Rangpur, the area where my fieldwork will be conducted. We have villages in 7 of the 8 upazilas (kind of like counties?) within Rangpur District and are living in the 8th, Rangpur Sadar (red star). It is more of a city and we excluded urban villages from our study.
It is usually about an 8 hour bus ride, but thanks to a religious holiday there was zero traffic leaving Dhaka (black star) and we made it in SIX! The only way to really explain this bus ride is to compare it to the Knight Bus in Harry Potter. Goes way too fast and swerves through traffic, speed bumps, pot holes and then when the honking doesn't work to move the obstacle the brakes get slammed.... but there is A/C so I can't really complain. Since we got there earlier than expected we went to check into our hotel then left to house hunt. This is not like your ordinary house hunt where maybe you jump on google or craigslist for listings... you just straight up drive around town and pull over when you see a "to-let" sign. We did this for a solid five or six hours, with a lot of my job being "stay here, or else they will try and charge us more". I keep saying that we need a code word for 'hide the white girl' because they often make me stay put or go around the corner when negotiating price for either rickshaw, taxi, or rent! Because I am white and clearly a foreigner, they will automatically try and charge more - they are no dummies. We also ran into a problem with the landlords because it will be me, and my 6 field crew members who are all guys, living in the apartment. A lot of the families were not okay with this setup because they did not understand how that would work since I am not married to any of them. We found a few promising apartments and it is funny how everyone around gets involved... they all have something to say. Which brings me back to the staring... I keep saying I am going to feel so neglected when I move back to the states because I get so much dang attention in Bangladesh. Myself and Hannah, a visiting postdoc from Hopkins (only here for a week, also white female), were sitting in the "taxi" (basically a longer golf cart) waiting for the guys to negotiate something when a band of local Bangladeshi guys come up and start talking to us. They kept saying "you strong" and "you wrestle" while making the arm wrestling gesture... they were very impressed with my guns (even though I was wearing a quite loose salwar kameez). Then they look at Hannah and say "not so strong", which is hilarious because she is a normal, small built girl. They then asked me my weight and when I told them they discussed it for about two minutes and wanted to take my picture but I could not slouch haha. What an ordeal... they were very pleased with my athletic prowess lol!! The next day our plan was to meet with the district commissioner, leader of the entire district, and the police superintendent. This is a formality you must do when working in these places, and letters go along with this. First was the district commissioner where Al-Amin, one of the entomologists on my team, did all of the talking and the commissioner never really acknowledged my presence... very formal. Then we went to the superintendent of police... not so formal. He was very excited to have us and spoke with us, in English a lot of the time, and offered us coffee (hard to come by here), fresh mangos (mango season just started!) and guava. After about an hour of chatting in his office he invited us to his residence... and we were taken there by police escorts! He was very pleased to show us his collection of over 500 pigeons that is made up of over 50 different species that he imports from all over the world.. pricey!! If you know me at all you know I am not fond of pigeons... so I was obviously more pumped about his goats, sheep and cows! He then invited us into his home for some coca-cola, tea cookies, mangos, lychee, and oranges all from his land... Grandma, he is giving you a run for your money! So after a total of about 3 hours, we finally got police escorted home and regrouped to find a place for our goats. We needed to find temporary housing for them as we prepare to set them up in the villages. Luckily by word of mouth we found a small cow farm tucked back about 2 blocks from our apartment. Of course as we show up Al-Amin travels to talk to the man of the house and we are left to be gawked at. This time is was mainly all the women of the household (they all live together in neighboring houses) with their husbands and children. One of the women really clicked with me, though her english was not great nor my bengali good at all. She took my hand and showed me around to all of the houses, offered me tea (had to say no, unclean water), had me sit in their house, showed me my "sisters" i.e. all of her nieces, and let me see the cows. This wonderful family will be watching our baby goats for us as we take them out 2 by 2 to their villages. All that was left was to finalize the apartment by putting down the first month's advance... $123 for a 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom 2nd floor apartment. No... there is no A/C. It is empty and so we need to purchase all of the furniture, fans, kitchenware, etc. Also, it is very common here that we will hire staff to cook, clean, and do laundry - less than $30 a month. I will have my own bedroom and bathroom, and balcony (woo hoo) - while the other two rooms and third makeshift room via curtain in the doorway will be split between the other 6 field members. The main dining area will be used for our mosquito identification table with microscopes and equipment storage. Overall it was an incredibly productive trip and it was really good to see how things run and the issues that might arise throughout the field season. It took about 7 1/2 hours to bus home today and tomorrow will be a nice and relaxing weekend day.
Hey guys... so I have been gone a few days now and got thrown straight into work all while still battling this stupid jet lag (I keep telling my body to suck it up!). So now I am finally ready to attack some workouts as it is Friday and the beginning of our weekend here.
Fun facts about this workout... wanted to have an intro outside but I was already in my workout capris, can't have those leggies showing outside on my balcony. I already attract a lot of staring as a very, very white girl. Also, first world problems of having to find other music sources because pandora and spotify do not exist in Bangladesh. I have found a cool new site called hickery that is basically pandora but uses youtube instead... it has been pretty good thus far. The bars that cover my windows are basically square rebar and that was quite unpleasant if I may say so. I was also not hanging under them so the pullup was a bit different than usual but at least I got them in! The situps should be called scoot-ups because I would end across the room by the time I finished a set because the tile is so slick. Other than that it was business as usual minus the fact that I apparently did a poor job of hydrating before bed because I was feeling that... slow going to start but I will adjust. Hence my clever title for the first video. I haven't figured out the best way to keep these separate from my science posts but I will figure something out soon. Missing my Dynasty family and can't wait to skype in on a bodyweight workout soon! Well folks, I have finally arrived! What a journey... and I thought my trip to Africa years ago was long. At least I had stops and left the airport (which I will do on my way home from Bangladesh).
Sunday started off wonderfully with a few short errands and two hours of sand volleyball... heaven! Then my friend Punam dropped me off at the GNV airport to pick up my rental car to drive myself to Jacksonville where my flights all began. I got there an hour and 45 minutes before my flight and let's just say... that was cutting it close. It took almost an hour for the gal at the desk to figure out my bag situation... had to check 3 and 2 were overweight (due to fifteen 12V batteries, microscope, and other field equipment). It was not her fault though and after the whole thing went down she gave me a "fast pass" for the preferred security line so that was AWESOME... took me 2 mins to get through security. That began my 24 hour trip with 19 hours of flying. When I finally got to the last leg of my flight (istanbul --> dhaka) I was maybe 1 of three white people in the whole place (other two mere men) and everyone told me I would be stared at but my goodness was that 100% the truth haha. I was talking to a gal who grew up in Bangladesh and lives in the states now and she said that their culture believes you are more beautiful the lighter your skin tone is... wish that were true in the US so I wouldn't have to fake tan lotion my pasty legs lol. My icddr,b handler was at the airport with my name on a sign... have always wanted to have that happen... and he told me exactly what to do and say to customs and the VISA security. So glad he was there because not a lot of Bangladeshis speak english and that could have gotten hard. All three of my checked bags made it - I was in shock! So about an hour after my flight landed we were out of there and past the gates were so many people (even that early, about 6am) bargaining for their rickshaw, taxi, baby taxi, etc. We had a VIP exit (yes, that's what it's called) where a hired driver from icddr,b was waiting at the car. I swore our car was going to hit these children that run so close to the cars and people that are just everywhere around the airport. The near crashes didn't stop there... merging into the roads to leave there are no lanes like in the US and everyone just kind of goes and uses their horns to warn that they are about to pass or to "move the hell over" so I can pass. It was so bizarre though, I felt pretty safe oddly enough. About a 10-15 minute drive (streets are pretty empty compared to afternoons) and we arrive at my hotel... I am very impressed - $50/night goes far in Bangladesh. Running water, stand up dial shower, flushing toilet, an A/C box, wifi and cable with epic indian music channels. However, I got there before management and no one spoke english, so I had to wait for another hour and a half to officially check-in and get the wifi password and all that, though I capitalized on that time and napped. Free breakfast comes every morning and I had delicious authentic bangladeshi paratha (SO GOOD), scrambled eggs, and tea. I sat in the breakfast room at a table that looks outside so I could watch the busy streets and everything that goes with them... however, it seemed I was the one being watched. Even those in rickshaws zooming by seemed to notice the white girl sitting in the window haha... I don't know if I will ever get used to the staring. After a delicious meal I headed back to my room, showered, and hit the bed hard. I slept all day (Florida's night) and now I am struggling to sleep during their night (which is necessary if I want to adjust to the time!). Tomorrow I am getting picked up and get to start working at icddr,b and meet those who I have been skyping with the past few months! Cannot wait... and yes monsoons hit here with ferocity but are not all day (at least right now). Oh man... I cannot tell you enough how ecstatic I am to finally be leaving for this trip! I have been talking about it for months and explaining to people for months and now it is finally happening. I must say I have gotten annoyed with all of the "but what about this?... how are you going to deal with this?...etc." type questions because I cannot worry about the things I do not control. And my god... I definitely CANNOT control monsoon season in Bangladesh and the subsequent number of times I get diarrhea from the terrible water haha, all a part of the journey.
I will be in Dhaka for about 7 days before we kickoff our fieldwork (fingers crossed). I say that because we still have yet to get IACUC and IRB approval through UF (the animal and people overseeing boards for research). How am I not having a constant panic attack you ask... refer back to the last paragraph. All will happen when it happens... all I can do is bug the sh*t out of the offices to push them through. In 24 hours (rough... I know) I will arrive in the heart of Bangladesh... after being routed through Jacksonville, JFK, and Istanbul first of course. If you didn't already see in my facebook post you can contact me using email ([email protected]) or skype (stephcink). I will have internet access for most of my trip so I won't be disconnected completely (sadly). Look for the actual exciting posts soon... I cannot wait to experience ALL Bangladesh has to offer. It will be a trip of a lifetime but also the first field season for my dissertation research. I still can't believe I have already finished a year of my PhD... bizarre. Thanks for all of the happy thoughts and good lucks... I will take whatever I can get. My first blog ever... for someone who doesn't like sharing, this is huge. Welcome!
Many of you have had to listen to me gripe about how much work this Japanese encephalitis (JEV) project has been in terms of writing the whole proposal, getting all of the approvals from every regulatory board known to mankind, working with collaborators that are 10-12 hours ahead, getting shot up with a bunch of vaccines and the tiny details that are so important to international travel and fieldwork. That being said... I AM SO LUCKY FOR THIS OPPORTUNITY. Words cannot explain how ecstatic I am to finally be doing international fieldwork, which has been my goal from day 1 of my science career. My semester of Ebola research, fieldwork preparation and tough classes with cumulative finals (eek!) wraps up in two weeks! First year of my PhD down... kind of surreal and FLEW by. The day after my last final I get to fly and see: my grandparents in Seattle for 2 days, parents in Pullman for a week and a half, and my sister & bro-in-law in Phoenix for a long weekend. It will be so nice to see my family before my big adventure of a summer. I know my family has been asking for a little blurb about what I will be studying so here it is! Yes, that is cheating posting a link to my research summary... sorry. I leave around May 25/26 for Bangladesh and won't return until Aug 16/17. Most of my time will be spent in Rangpur Division (divisions are kind of like counties) though I will travel to Dhaka regularly as this is where the lab we are collaborating with is (see map below). I will be traveling to various villages and interacting with local people a lot (including entering their homes and likely eating supper so I hear) in order to collect the data necessary for my study. A lot of my friends' first question has been "but what about CrossFit?". Valid concern... I will take some cues from the incredible Lisa & Mike Ray from their travels and also plan to make my own "resource-poor guide to CrossFit". Have no fear, I will be SO GOOD at body weight movements when I get back and hope to get some goat squats in too. That is all... hope the first one wasn't too boring and there will be some exciting moments coming up! |
Steph CinkThis is my way to share both my personal and research experiences with my family, friends and those that are interested.
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