Back in a rich western country...

So how does it feel to be back? Good. Safe. Healthier every day. As I gradually recover from post Bangladesh fevers and dysentary, and step back into the life I left 6 weeks ago. But it's not the same. Not for me. Now I look for poisonous snakes along the pathway that I used to jog every day. I also had to work on my trust for other drivers, that they would follow the rules and not try to push me out of the way by honking and intimidation. I think all those things will fade though.

For a while I couldn't really think too much about my time in Bangladesh. There was too much work to do sorting through and presenting the data we collected and continue to collect over there. But I was also reluctant to dwell on what I had seen and felt there. Much was good but much was bad as well. I started listening to Bangladeshi CD's I had picked up over there. I enjoy the music very much now, something about that music resonates within me. I often find that experiences too intense are best experienced afterwards. It's only after that I feel calm enough to process what I have been a part of.

I think being back among friends and family has restored me the most. I don't want to sound overly dramatic but there is a re-entry phase which seems both physical (sickness) and mental and social. Being back in your own culture and language is always empowering compared to being dependent on the good nature of others to tolerate your ignorance of what even a child knows. Our work there is complex, and I don't mean the science. I mean the relationships between the locals and ourselves, and excellent reputation western researchers have in Araihazar where we worked. Although excellent I also feel it is delicate. Like the peace that comes and goes at the campus of the University of Dhaka, where party groups like to deomonstrate violently sometimes. Now there's a military "Care Taker" government, which should soon be replaced by a democratically elected one.

The villages where we worked were totally different than the smoggy, overcrowded, politically charged city. The further you go away from cities, highways and markets, you notice that tempers cool, as coconut trees grow. I like the villages the most.

Bangladesh

Getting on the flight to Dubai at JFK.

Labels that were added to wells across Bangladesh notifying the owners of high arsenic levels.

Rice paddy outside of Dhaka on the way to our field sites in Araihazar

Grad students waiting around at market for pumps to be purchased on the first day in Bangladesh

Matt (UT), Brian (Prof. at Columbia) and myself at our first study site where we spent 4 days

Ultrafiltration apparatus, version 12.0

This guy really wanted his photo taken with me, he looks like a priest to me, but he might just be especially conservative

Filtering groundwater from monitoring wells, virus hunting!

Arrival at Zia International Airport in Dhaka with 31 pieces of luggage

River near site K

Mansion from the time of British rule, pre 1947

Mosque at site C

Rare Hindu temple, 100's of years old, also at site C

Playing badminton with the local boys at site C

Some of my fans, scientific research has never attracted such a crowd! I call the girl in the middle "Kamunga" because she climbed a tree to get me a star fruit, which are very sour. Kamunga = Star Fruit

Our field man in Bangladesh, Belal, who's collecting a lot of data for the project over the next 7 months. We just finished purging the tubewell with 120 pumps. Belal has his masters in Geophysics from U Dhaka and is one of several recent graduates that act as field hands and cultural liasons for American-based grad students and professors.

Geology department library at U Dhaka. Yes Geologists can read, but it takes us a long time, which is why we get our own library.

Rickshaws around the Campus

Special Military Uniform at the airport

Belal and I at Pizza Hut and nothin but

Pizza party back at the clinic where we stayed

Rickshaw ride through Site K village (Chora Para) where I will be doing most of my field work over the next year, likely.

Mud fishing where they dam up a portion of the river and pump all the water out. Then they go feeling through the mud for fish and the occasional poisonous snake. They found one this time and managed to throw it out of the water without getting bittin. Then a little kid with a big stick came along and wacked him on the head. Thinking it was dead they threw it towards me. When it landed 20 ft away in the rice field the grass started to move again, oops it wasn't dead yet. This experience kept me on my toes after.

Measuring vertical hydraulic gradients (up or down) below the numerous ponds in the village. It is our running hypothesis that in the dry season, these ponds are sources of bacteria and pathogens to neighbouring (sometimes only 5 ft away!) wells. Verifying that the gradient (flow direction) was indeed downward supported this hypothesis, so far...

Loading docks along the Bramaputra river near Dhaka on the way to the field sites. I drove over this bridge about 40 times in 3 weeks.

The hand flap method of drilling in Bangladesh. Very effective and cheap. You get the whole drilling team for 100 bucks a day, and they can easily pop in 5-6 shallow wells in that time. It's very effective when they do it, I just sprayed drilling mud all over myself and the guy standing next to me whose job I had temporarily taken over, I think I got fired after that.

A food court in a Dhaka shopping mall. I saw signs for "Canadian Food", "France Food", "Russian Food" but there was no difference between them. They were all hamburgers, french fries and fried chicken.

My field assistant during 3 days of drilling, Mukta, a Geologist from U Dhaka. She was extremely helpful interpreting for me and was eager to learn the more practical hydro work that she hadn't been taught in school.

The village kids at site K, Chora Para (Para = Village)

Karrie, the PhD student from Columbia with whom I now share site K (for Karrie) with.

The Ramp Up to Bangladesh

I'm reminded, in my infinite frustration, that in the Microbiology Lab, sometimes you do everything right, dot every i, and nothing works. And sometimes I take short cuts and ignore procedures left and right, and everything works perfect. After many evenings, weekends and holidays spent running into the lab to babysit my bacteria and viruses, that can't seem to get along, things still aren't working, and I'm exhausted. Emotionally spent, waiting for the breakthrough, one large step for me, and a redundant non-step for mankind. With all the teaching and courses, I haven't got enough time to devote to lab work in the last two years to be proficient in the basic microbiology methods I need now, as we rush off to Bangladesh. I know I have other skills to offer the team, validating our filters are our first step before applying them in the field, and if I can't do that, I'm not as good as I thought I was.

How many forms of failure must one take before one learns what one is really good at? Or is it in failure that we learn (as Thomas Edison believed) and so, as a self-professed life-long learner, I should get used to failure. Everyone rushes to reward the person that achieves, overcomes, succeed, but what about those that continue on inspite of failure? My hero, Paul Farmer, fights what he believes is a losing battle, advocating health of the poorest of the poor in Haiti, Peru and Russian Prisons. My goals are somewhat (and perhaps only temporally) aligned with his broader goals, but in Bangladesh. I'm not alone though, I have a team, at Columbia, UT (Center for Environmental Biotechnology), UNC and U Dhaka, but also, if you're reading this, you! I guess I need your understanding most of all, which is why I write this. If you're religious, then prayer is great as well!

A New York Minute

Megan, Lisa and I doing a crazy pose infront of the fountains in Lincoln Center. Because NYC is such a condensed cauldron of humanity - talent, knowledge, wisdom, foolishness, affection, music, architecture, poverty, wealth - like a concurrent bombardment of all that life can offer or take away from you. So what did we do with all that? We went to an Irish Pub for a beer.

Broadway.

Walking the pathway connecting Broadway and Amsterdam through the central coutyard of Columbia.

I got up at 3:30 am in Knoxville to get here by 9 am and spend all day touring the campus, and all evening and into the night meeting friends off campus and going out for our initial "meet and greet" with the Bangladesh team from all over the US. I have no doubt that these people can accomplish our stated goals. At one point during a meeting I was literally shaking with excitement when I realized how what we are doing is going to be so novel and broad in its implications, it will raise the bar for my entire field of study (waterborne diseases and groundwater), and redefine the state of knowledge. OK, maybe that was too enthusiastic, but when you're just started out your academic career, enthusiasm is all you got!

In front of the Low Memorial Library, where the Chancellor's office is based. Compare this to the awe-inspiring view of the Dana Porter library at U Waterloo (sarcasm). That's alright though, UW might be young, but we're scrappy. Bring it on!

Earl Hall. Lecture hall, and multi-faith meeting center.

Top of the Physics building. How many stars can you see in NYC???

Ahh the Physics building. Home to some of my childhood heroes, such as Brian Greene who wrote "The Elegant Universe" or "Fabric of the Cosmos". Columbia University has 84 Nobel Prizes attributed to it, more than any other school in the world.

Looking past the Physics building to a Church that is being reconstructed. Could this picture be symbolic of something? I don't know, really I don't.

The student life building, with very cool, mostly glass architecture.

Not sure what this building is.

Looking out over the central courtyard where famous speeches (such as the recent controversial one by the President of Iran) and anti-war protests have taken place over the centuries.

Looking up Amsterdam Av. Manhattan Island was initially settled by Dutch people.

Faculty house.

Lunch at the Faculty House overlooking uptown Manhattan (Harlem). The university is positioned on a fault that raises it up above the city around it.

One of the several historical landmark chapels at Columbia U. Columbia was started by the Church of England in 1754, then named King's College. The name and governance was changed after the Revolutionary War. They had a difficult time finding someone to govern the new Columbia University since many of the loyalist alumni had fled to Canada or Britain.

One of the few and largest Geotechnical centrifuges in the world, able to take a several hundred kilo load up to 200 g's. I wanted to go for a ride.

This metal box fits into the "gondola" of the Centrifuge to study slope stability around construction in unconsolidated sediments, such as road cuts.

Opera house at Lincoln Center.

Lincoln Center with the Opera House in the background.

Instead of taking a cab we had an enjoyable 8 am, 50 block walked with the U North Carolina people to the meeting at Columbia U.

One of the many great buildings along the walk to Columbia U from the Hotel

Vaulted ceilings of a beuatiful Cathedral along the upper west side of Central Park.