Sylhet and Chittagong

January brought my first two trips out of Dhaka. Or so I learned. First to Sylhet in mid-January to host high-level visitors from Chevron and then to Chittagong at the end of the month with all other USAID-funded projects for "America Week" (think State Fair and unfortunately, no, there was no butter cow and calf). Before my trip to Sylhet, a colleague asked if this was my first trip out of Dhaka. "No, sir" I boasted "I've been to Gazipur." Laughing, he told me that Gazipur is in fact in Dhaka. . it just took me three hours to get there due to traffic.

Sylhet

In the north-east part of the country, Sylhet is the third largest city in Bangladesh though feels like a small town compared to Dhaka. In the rural area just outside of Sylhet, Chevron has an energy plant (see photo right) and pays the operating cost of three of our 323 clinics near the

plant to support the health care of their workers (see photo left, My back is to the plant when taking the photo of the clinic and vice versa). Chevron recently donated a new ultra sonogram machine (photo below with SSFP clinic staff).

What struck me about the city was it's size in comparison to Dhaka and in turn less pollution (you could see stars!) and less vehicle traffic (cars and buses) and more rickshaws and CNGs.

Photo on left is a standard street in Sylhet. The only car you see is ours that was parked while we had lunch. Sylhet is known for its tea gardens, tropical gardens, and being one of the richest cities in Bangladesh due to remittances. (and now some history for your) my colleagues took me to the shrine of Hazrat Shah Jalal, a Muslim saint who is credited with bringing Islam to the region in 1303. Though I could not actually see the shrine (men only), my colleagues informed me that it is a bit controversial as Islam strictly prohibits worshiping humans (there is no God except Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet).

Chittagong

Chittagong was a completely different experience with a good number of the US expats traveling down for America Week. To give you a sense of what life is like in Bangladesh, I took a one-minute video on an average street in Chittagong but had some trouble uploading it to the blog so it's on my Facebook page. - take a look. The video was shot outside of our

West Bakalia clinic (before the US Ambassador's visit). You'll see the Smiling Sun sign and the clinic is the second floor of the building providing maternal and child health services with a full Operation Theatre. There were four new moms in the ward - see photo right of a new baby girl!