My Fieldsite and My Life's People Thus Far

When I first arrived at my fieldsite, it was a breath of fresh air. Bandarban is on the Southeast nub of Bangladesh in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. The area has had its political ups and downs, some of which I will detail, but suffice it to say that the area is mainly full of indigenous populations. In Bandarban alone there are 11 or 12 (I can't remember) and others groups are dispersed around Bangaldesh. Bandarban is full of trees and relatively clean-smelling air. It has rain and mist and dirt roads and women and walking and cows in the streets and PIGS - it has PIGS people. Dhaka is crowded and congested and smelly and by the following pictures, you can see why it was amazing to get here.

I can't remember whether I have briefed you on the larger project, so I will do it again. It's an active surveillance study for the next three years and every week, they will randomly take 12 people and take blood slides to test for malaria (via RDT, PCR, and microscopy). It's the first active surveillance study for malaria in Bangladesh and a previous study showed a parasite level of around 8% during non-rainy seasons here, which is almost as high as some African countries. If you know about malaria: P. falciparum (the worse kind) is most prevalent here and of the CHT (Chittagong Hill Tracts - the surrounding region), Bandarban has shown higher rates. The entire project staff here is tribal people - the 12 fieldworkers for communication reasons, but even the entomologist and the data analyst, who both have university degrees. The medical officer has lived his whole life here and the project manager was brought in special for this project. They are from 4 different tribes I think, which is great because they work with about 6. And most people, even the villagers, know at least one language and Bengali...

The time I spent here in September is useless to detail, except to say that I was welcomed warmly by the fieldstaff, the project manager (Jacob), the medical officer (Chai), the entomologist (Sumit), and the data manager (Annie). We even went on a couple "sightseeing" tours - to a temple and to a small waterfall and did all the prerequisite stuff like meeting people at the hospital we would be recruiting people from and getting
"permissions" from the chief of health something-or-other. It was also the opening of the office and I came down with the PI, so there were lots of celebrations, invitations to dinners, visits to the field, etc. etc. However, since I didn't have IRB approval yet, I couldn't actually do real things.

Bandarban is a major city within the area, so it's not as remote as I thought it would be. That's both a positive and a negative. I wanted a more remote experience and while this is remote, I can take a bus back to Dhaka overnight or a two hour ride to Chittagong and an airport. However, it is nice to have civilization sometimes. And there are wonderful friends there....who I will detail now.

Alison: former Dhaka roommate, Fogarty fellow, and trying to solve the problems of cholera in a lab

Taher, Murshid, and Taibur: three Bangladeshi boys who work in Alison's lab who explain to us the workings of this country and why we shouldn't say some of the things we do...

Muraly: Canadian expat doing some sort of business where he sells things to people...

Lameck: Kenyan boy studying for his MPH at the BRAC School of Public Health

Tarik: Egyptian (?) expat also doing some sort of business here - either with phones or telecomm...or are those the same thing?

Evelyn: second former Dhaka roommate, Fogarty fellow, and involved in many many projects trying to solve the problems of Bangladesh...

Khoshal: other ICDDR, B intern, Dutch medical student, studying Gullian-Barre syndrome

Meghana: other ICDDR, B intern, US medical student from Buffalo, trying to get people to wash their hands

So those are the major people involved in my Dhaka life. All wonderful.

And I think that is probably enough catching up for today. Soon to come: my feelings on conferences, Eid, Durga Puja, my project, Hallowe'en...