Sri Lanka

Last weekend for Thanksgiving I took a trip down to Sri Lanka to visit my family and the beach! Sri Lanka was SO clean, and orderly. I’m not sure if that’s because it is, or because I’ve been in Bangladesh for the past 6 weeks so anything would be impressive compared to here! The streets … Continue reading →

Cultural Differences

The past few weeks I’ve had some friends ask me what living here is like.  There have been some interesting moments, and funny cultural differences that have happened.  One that just happened to me though was last night which made me think of the larger difference of relationships and marriage in Bangladesh.  My fridge stared … Continue reading →

One Month Down!

Last Friday marked one month in Bangladesh for me. To celebrate this occasion, I finally had my first case of “Dhaka Belly” so far I’ve been very lucky and been able to eat at a few restaurants around town and not get sick. (In comparison we had someone visiting from the DC office who got … Continue reading →

Bangladesh in the Economist

There is a great article about Bangladesh in the Economist right now that accurately describes what’s going on in the country that was sent to me by a good friend back in DC. It’s a pretty good read for anyone who is interested. Here’s the link: http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21565617-bangladesh-has-dysfunctional-politics-and-stunted-private-sector-yet-it-has-been-surprisingly

Old Dhaka

This weekend my coworker and I took a tour of Old Dhaka, which is the original fort from the 1600’s when traders were traveling on the silk and spice road. The area now is an extremely crowded with streets and streets of small factories, plastic processing plants, and other raw good processing facilities. The conditions … Continue reading →

Election Eve

It’s Monday night here in Dhaka, which means it’s Election Eve! This is the first election that I’ve sat out since I started working in politics in 2003. At first I was relieved that I wasn’t involved in the rat race, but I always loved GOTV weekend. Watching all the campaign activities on CNN has … Continue reading →

Sylhet

After I got back from Nepal this week, I traveled to Sylhet which is in the northeast part of the country. We went to a small village that was about two hours north, right on the border with India to discuss party reform with a group of participants. After the event, my Banladeshi colleague thought … Continue reading →