Water

Simple topic I suppose, but one that's pretty important to life over here, so it will be the topic of my second "in country" post.  While people who are born here are generally able to handle the bacteria that lives in the water here, it can cause significant problems for visitors.  That being said, even people who have lived their entire lives here can still fall victim to water-borne illness.  With the rainy season quickly approaching, the ICDDR, B (International Center for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh) is preparing for a drastic increase in cholera cases among others.

For the average westerner, life is pretty easy.  I have a large distiller in my kitchen that automatically prepares fresh drinking water for me.  I can then use that water for cooking, drinking, brushing my teeth, etc.  Showering and bathing in the local water is safe as long as you can keep the kids from drinking the water, but general kitchen routines have had to be changed a bit.  Fresh produce (which can be contaminated) has to be soaked in a mixture of distilled water and bleach, followed by plain distilled water to get off most of the bleach (which will also cause diarrhea) before it is safe for consumption.  Luckily, our military sponsor had a drawer full of fresh produce already cleaned and waiting for us in our fridge when we arrived.

We wash our dishes in local water (with soap), but then take all of the freshly washed dishes and let them soak in a bleach water solution followed by plain distilled water, and then air dry them all.  Luckily, our family is pretty small, so this task is manageable.  While Josh has now succumbed to illness as well, I have to believe the only reason I'm still well is that I spend a significant portion of my day hanging out with the bleach bottle.  What better way to kill all the germs around the house.

Everything was fine and good until our distiller ran out.  Apparently the distiller is supposed to refill itself automatically any time you use water.  Since we're new here, I didn't know that.  I assumed that maybe once it got close to the bottom of the tank, it would start refilling, but we never reached that point.  So after a quick visit from maintenance yesterday, we're back up and running.  Of course, the heat generated by having the distiller run for 24 hours straight in a non-climate controlled kitchen is pretty significant.  I'm definitely happy that this happened now (during pretty mild weather) rather than during the heat of the summer.

I'd also like to tack on a small historical note to this - hope no one minds.  Today is a pretty important holiday on the Bangladeshi calendar - International Language Day or Martyr's Day.  Pardon my limited knowledge of local culture thus far, but one of the biggest reasons Bangladesh exists today as a separate nation (and no longer East Pakistan) was that Bangladeshis wanted Bangla to be an official language of the country, and West Pakistan only wanted Urdu.  A group of political activists and students protested this decision on February 21, 1952 and were killed in the course of the protest by police.