Henry's first adventure to rural Bangladesh

Henry, Shipli (the nanny), and I just got back from our first adventure to northern rural Bangladesh where we visited the public health research site I'm working with.  We left early on Sunday, which is the first day of the work week here, in order to beat the traffic and arrive before the end of the weekly staff meeting.  Luckily the drive up was uneventful. 

On Monday Henry came to the office so that he could meet everyone.  I had assumed that after all the introductions were made Henry and Shilpi would go back to the place we were staying and I would continue working.  Happily, Henry was invited on the field visit I had planned to see activities associated with a study designed to explore the possible association between maternal iodine status during pregnancy and cognitive development at 5 years of age.  Oh my goodness - you can imagine the fun Henry had with all the attention he got as a smilely, white baby in rural Bangladesh!  First we hung out with the office staff:

 Then it was time to get to work observing the child assessments. At one point I had to leave the assessment room because I was causing the child too much "tension".  I decided that it would be a great time to take some photos of Henry in rural Bangladesh.  I left the office and walked a bit to the right, then walked a bit to the left,...no sign on Henry (and Shilpi).  Finally a man at the tea shop pointed down a path and said "They took him that way." Ha, he had been "abducted".  I finally found him by following the giggling.  There he was the life of the party in a random house nearby.  Shilpi is there on the right in the pink pants.  I snapped some photos and then left the scene as it was. 














Eventually I went back to take a few more photos which ended up way more subdued:

Before going back to the main office that day we posed for more photos outside the office:

 

Two days later I planned on going to the field again to visit a different study for which we are visiting women in their homes during birth (95+% of women here give birth in their home) to collect cord blood and placental weight among other things.  Because it's quite impossible to know when a birth will happen I expected to visit just the field office. Unexpectedly, at 10 in the morning the study manager called and said we had to leave for the field that minute because a woman was in the last stages of labor. Oh my gosh!!! Could I be so lucky?  We left immediately and arrived as the cord was being cut!  WOW!  What a special experience to be there for the birth and to linger for about 30 minutes after.  Here's a photo of the 5 minute old baby boy held by the mother's sister:














I took these other two photos while standing inside the new mother's home looking out:

On Wednesday it was time to return home to Dhaka but not before more photos with Shilpi

 

Akram who manages the place where we stay up there:

And the driver:

Henry (and I) had a great time on the adventure (except for the fact that the van air conditioning didn't work during the 7 hour drive back to Dhaka!!). We're looking forward to more fun in Bangladesh.