Stranded in paradise

We recently went to Phuket, Thailand for a weekend beach get away. Local political demonstrations closed the airport and we were stranded in paradise for an extra day and a half. Doesn't get much better than that.

Claude the Yard Knome

Claude the Yard Knome visited us from a 2nd grade class in LaGrange, GA. We tried our best to show him a good time in Dhaka and then we sent him back to the class with photos and stories to share with the kids

Our children and house staff are familiar enough with the concept of Santa Claus to know that he wears a pointed hat and has a long white beard. They are not familiar enough with the concept, however, to distinguish Santa Claus from Claude the Yard Knome. The name similarities didn't help, either. So, they called him Santa Claus. Here are a few photos from Santa's visit.

When the cold is too hot

Sometimes, during the hot season, even the cold water it too hot for a bath. The water sits in a very long system of outdoor pipes and arrives in our house too hot for wahsing kids. No worries, though, we have ice. This is Lily and Odin preparing their bath by adding ice cubes.

Measuring up

We measure the passing of time by marking the height of our children on the wall. Odin decided that he wanted to get in on the action. He took responsibility for measuring Lily. Figuring out how to measure Dad was a little more challenging...

Odin and Solene

We so enjoyed a visit from some friends in May. Odin and Solene, who knew each other in infancy, became friendly again. Odin even agreed to show her his camera.

The double stroller

Since I became a mother, I've asked myself more than once, "Who am I?" I had another one of these moments when we purchased our first double stroller. I didn't recognize the woman pushing this contraption around the neighborhood. One part of me mourned my former identity, who used to travel light. The other part of me was simply thrilled with the notion of being able to stroll with both of my children at the same time.

Yoga-ing

I love to watch my kids strike yoga poses. They enjoy rolling out the mat to do "yoga-ing". They're both pros at downward dog, shown here.

Shubo Nobo Borsho!

Or, in English, Happy Bengali New Year! Bangladesh celebrated the New Year yesterday with festive cultural celebrations all over the country. We took the kids to see some singing and dancing at the park new our house. Everyone was dressed in their finest red and white clothes.

Considering the stressful months that have passed since western New Year's on January 1st we're looking to the Bengali New Year to bring us a fresh start. This includes a renewed commitment to the blog!

Gloves

My son doesn't know what winter gloves are. Therefore, any 'gloves' are used as a sporting goods.

And miles to go before we sleep...

Wow, it's been a while since the last blog. A lot has been going on and this is part of my excuse.

In the first week of March Lily and I were back in the USA for 2 weeks. She received endless love and affection from great-grandparents, grandparents, cousins, aunties and an uncle while I attended a pneumonia surveillance workshop and presented some of my data on bacterial meningitis and hospital acquired respiratory infections at the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases in Atlanta. I must admit, nothing says "Moms are scientists, too!" like a stroller at a scientific conference. However, I'm not sure that I'll be bringing children with me to the next one. The travel was absolutely brutal- 36 hours door to door each way. And it took 2 weeks to get over jet-lag when we returned to Dhaka. But the visit was wonderful! My professional work went very well and the time spent with family and friends was fabulous. Aunt Lori and Grandma and Grandpa Adams get a special shout out for taking on Lily care for very long hours!

So, we recovered from the trip a few weeks ago. Here are a few pictures and highlights from our long adventure.

Lily celebrated her first birthday in Greenville, SC

The cake says it all

Mimi feeding Lily some birthday cake

Lily with a birthday gift

Posing for Mommy

Lovin' with Aunt Lacey- girls in their jammies

Emily with colleagues in Atlanta

Emily presenting her poster at the conference

Lily discovers that she loves, loves tutus. Aunt Lori isn't sure how any daughter of mine could be "so fancy".

Lily hanging at the United Airlines business class lounge in Hong Kong

Lily up at 2 am to play in Dhaka- baby jet-lag is serious business

Public hospitals

We're currently conducting surveillance for hospital acquired respiratory infections at three public tertiary care hospitals in Bangladesh. Specifically, we're interested in the role that hospitals might play as places where infections like influenza could easily spread from person to person. These hospitals are typically very crowded places, as you can see. These are a few photos from wards currently involved in the surveillance study.

A pediatric ward on admission day

An adult medicine ward at night

Patients hospitalized on the veranda

What not to put on your CV

At the end of last week I went through about 300 CVs to shortlist candidates for 3 junior researcher positions we have open. As I general rule, I suggest that when preparing a CV you focus on key experiences you've had which are relevant to the position advertised. If you find yourself tempted to include on your CV other intangible qualities, similar to this beautiful excerpt from one CV I read, please do your best to fight the temptation.

My first cricket game

I must admit that I really enjoyed playing my first cricket game! No one would ever call us 'good' cricket players, but we had a lot of fun. We were honored that 5 members of the Bangladesh National Women's Cricket Team came to watch our game and practice with us (pictured here in white). Can you imagine how 'outside the norm' you must be as a professional female athlete in Bangladesh? These women are cool. I wondered why these professional athletes would even be interested in watching such amateur play as ours. But then I realized that our teams could very well be the only women's cricket teams in the whole country outside of education institutions. I guess we have a lot in common with them- at least cricket interest, if not cricket skill.

Something I won't miss about Dhaka

In just over a year from now we'll be leaving Dhaka and moving back to the United States. With this in mind we've already started wondering what we'll miss most about our lives here. The final list will be sizable. However, there are some things we won't miss about living here. One is this disgusting stuff that appears on our downstairs floors with it's damp (which happens frequently, since we live in a tropical climate). I believe it to be mold, for obvious reasons, but Eric has hypothesized that it might be something leaching out of the concrete. Either way, it's gross, and we won't miss it.

Big girl

Lily is such a big girl now! And very, very cute if I do say so myself. Walking and talking. Five teeth. I can't believe that her first birthday is next month. Where did the time go?