You give me fever

We came back from our vacation and Vlad came down with some ugly symptoms. What I feared the most was Dengue fever, an infectious tropical disease transmitted by mosquitoes. Call me a scary cat, but when it comes to diseases nothing is more frightening than the ones I never heard of before. Mosquitoes killed even Alexander the Great, hence who am I to be braver?

Now more about dengue. Severe illness that is also called breakbone fever (hint, hint: it feels like someone is crushing your limbs). High fever, severe headache, pain behind the eyes, rash, joint and muscular pain, all that good stuff. A number of people from the Embassy contracted it since we got here and fortunately, none of them died, but some of them came pretty close. Bottom line is, with around 100 million cases worldwide per year, is not something to mess with.

Thanks God it wasn't Dengue! We dodged this bullet. At least for now!

The first encounter with pet care in Dhaka

I had to take my Oreo pup to a vet in the mega city of Dhaka. The expat's choices here, in a city of sixteen million people?

Number 1. Doctor Hossain. This is a guy that first came to our house to groom our pooch. A friend of mine had a really bad experience with him. After getting the money to perform a blood test, he would not produce a lab report. The Embassy had to call and threaten with a police investigation for him to come up with a piece of paper that turned out to be fake.

Number 2. Doctor Siamak (an Iranian expat). I talked to him when I was looking to test a cow before sacrifcing it. Lots of experience with large animals, mixed reviews with dogs. He operated on one of our friend's dog and had to come back almost an year after to adress an infection caused by the "disolvable" stiches he put in (came to find out, there are no such thing as disolvable when it comes to dogs).

Number 3. Doctor Azmat. He treated Oreo's girlfriend last month, with positive reviews.

So, I decided to go with Doctor Azmat, at Gulshan Pet Animal Clinic.

This is the entrance to Doctor Azmat's clinic

Sheep outside ready to be sacrificed

The pet clinic

A kitty having some sort of an enema performed by two technicians

Oreo on the operating table after the shot (not sure if the paper was current edition)

From one the clasic pieces of Romanian literature I studied in school I still remember this hilarious part:

"Our industry is admirable, is sublime, but it is completely non-existent!"

This is exactly how I felt today relative to the pet care here. I am praying really hard Oreo stays healthy during our Dhaka stay.

40 going on 20

Dhaka is not London or Singapore by any stretch of imagination. At least not yet. Medical care can be hit or miss even in one of the modern private hospitals. Maybe that is why our Embassy medical unit is going out its way to make sure everybody stays as healthy as possible. Part of the efforts? A biggest loser type of competition. You go in, check your weight, drop at least 10% of that and bam, you get the jackpot. And get healthy in the process. Easy, isn't it?

So, filled with good intentions and all that pork I had been force fed with in Romania, this week I showed up for a weigh in. They have this really sophisticated machine that spits out all this fancy numbers: BMI, Muscle mass, visceral fat rating and so on.

And best of all? I finally figured out why Dhaka feels so good: I am turning back the clock. My metabolic age is in the twenties. It's all starting to make sense now. That is why I have been accused by my kids and spouse of growing in height during their summer absence. That is why I have all this unconsummated energy and passion. From now on, I don't want to hear my significant other complaining that I am refusing to act my age.

The "Jeeps"

The Bangladeshis love SUVs. Huge tires, being able to look at things from above, the prestige and the perception of being able to drive over everything. Like in Romania, they call them Jeeps over here, even though you can hardly find a Wrangler or a Cherokee among them.

There are many things a SUV can do. It has four-wheel drive. It can drive through heavy snow or powerful storms. It can carry a huge haul. It can climb mountains or take on dessert sand dunes. The problem is, there are no mountains or sand dunes in Bangladesh. Everything is as flat as it can be. There is no snow or ice. And bumps prevent any speed record attempts.

But the SUV is a symbol. A class symbol. It screams out that you made it. You are no longer poor. Your parents might have been, but you broke through and now you can look over everybody and drive on.

Citing Borat, an SUV is the perfect vehicle for Bangladesh, NOT!

A Bangladeshi wedding reception

The day after the wedding there was the wedding reception. Now, the only difference I was able to observe between this and the wedding, was that this one was more Western. There was even a bit of music as well, and no religious ceremony.

Now talking about cultural differences. What we are used to, coming from a solid Eastern European background, is a night of heavy partying, with alcohol flowing, loud music and dancing until you break your legs. This was literally the case with one of our female friends, who really suffered multiple fractures from shaking her body so hard. Your seating is assigned and that in itself creates so much headaches for the organizers trying to satisfy everybody's preferences. In the morning, half of guests have to be pushed out of door, because they still want to party. Fast forward to Dhaka and things are quite different. The is no limit on how much is spent on the hall decoration. Everything looks like in a fairy tale. The decorations, the dresses, the hairdos, the jewelry. People come in throngs. They congratulate the bride and groom. They take pictures. They eat at one of the first available tables. Trays and trays of food, chicken curry, spiced rice and thousand of other things made of lentils and curry spice. They hang out for a little bit and leave. More pictures necessary. More eating! Only one plate? Have a second one. You look so skinny. And dont forget the desert - various forms of milk, rice, raisins, cardamom, and what tasted like gallons of sugar.

And then goodnight! A fabulous Bangladeshi reception party. A good reminder that we have really amazing friends and feel so loved.

Is this winter for sure?

Winter is finally here. Everywhere you turn there are people wrapped in scarves, shawls and winter jackets that seem more fit for an arctic winter.

In fact, the “extreme” cold temperatures are highs in the 70s and lows in the low 50s. I have never been a "polar bear" as I used to call my Canadian friends, but still  this seems like beautiful weather suitable for camping, hiking, and picnics. In Michigan, I looked forward to this kind of weather and it lasted far too short.

Life is different in Bangladesh. The homes are made of concrete, the windows and doors do not have weather stripping and there are no furnaces. The concrete buildings hold on to the nightly cold. The homeless and the people in the shantytowns build fires on the edges of the streets in the evenings and huddle around it smoking and drinking coffee or tea. The smoke indicates that it is trash, not wood.

All right, I get it that life is different here and the people are not equipped to handle the cold. But I can't help laughing at the guards with their heads and necks wrapped in scarfs.

The “bitter” cold temperatures are going to last for a few more days and will go back to the 80s next week. I will for sure enjoy this "cold" and miss it when it is gone!

Will sabotage from within

As I said before, there is an unlimited supply of humor in the Bangla land. For a local, used to the way things are working or not working here, sometimes it might go unnoticed.

The latest giggle I got comes from the colorful political scene. The Jatiya Party, third largest biggest party here managed to grab 33 seats in the latest almost election, emerging as the largest force after the ruling party. Great news, you would think, even it is just around 10%, at least you have a voice to express a different opinion. Not so fast, now Jatiya Party wants to share power and be also part of the cabinet. Something along the line, I want my cake and eat it too!

According to every norm of democracy that I ever learned, a party having a single cabinet member can't be in the opposition. But TIB (This is Bangladesh)!

Our round the world trip

Here is the thing… We all want to go everywhere.

What’s the problem with that? The short answer is, we can’t. We can’t go everywhere. But we can try. And by at least trying to go everywhere, we will see a whole lot of cool places along the way.

At the very beginning of this ambitious dream, all I could think about was that I wanted to travel the world – and I wanted to do it together as a family. I had a long list in my head comprised of just about every single country in the world, which has since been cut down and split up to something within reach.

It has gone from “We want to go to every country that has ever existed EVER!” to “Ok, let’s start with this.”

We settled on:

Singapore

Philippines

South Korea

Japan

USA

Germany

Romania

Turkey

UAE

Thailand

We pulled the kids out of school for a period of time I am a bit ashamed to mention and off we went for a month.

The result? We had the time of our lives. I know our journey will not end there. We intend to travel on, and hope to see the big picture, the small picture, and everything in between when it comes to living our dreams and traveling the world.

A Bangladeshi Wedding

I would be hard pressed to point to a culture where a wedding ceremony is celebrated with more pomp and zest. It is such a treat to see a traditional wedding ceremony in Bangladesh. We got invited to a wedding in November and were delighted and grateful for the opportunity.

Ussualy the weddings here happen in December-January mainly because the temperature cooler. We did not attend the Henna ritual that takes place at the bride’s home. Nor did we go to  ‘gaye holud’ or turmeric ceremony that also takes place at the bride’s home.

We attended the day of wedding and the reception. Do not ask me to tell you what the difference is between the two of them. Anyway, here are the pics from the wedding, the ones from the reception will follow. If you are wondering why so many pics, you are missing the point, a Bangladeshi wedding is all about taking pictures!!!!