Shuvo Naba Barsho!

Shuvo Naba Barsho!  Happy Bengali New Year!  Last weekend was the big New Year's Celebration.  Vanessa and I braved the crowds to get a look at what everything was about.  It's basically a big carnival (Bangladeshi style of course).  There was apparently also a parade, but we never made it that far through the crowds!  There were so many people it was pretty unbelievable.  The games and rides reminded me of festivals at home, but they definitely had their own local flavor.

Ring toss to win soap and cigarettes- the public health person in me was hoping everyone won soap, of course :-)

Throwing a ball to knock over 3 bottles of energy drink (you win the bottles if you knock them all over)

A semi-mobile concert in the middle of the street

Small wooden ferris wheel operated manually by a sweaty, shirtless man

Last week the preliminary data from the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey 2011 was released at a big event.  The data showed improvements in fertility and family planning, exclusive breastfeeding, and child health.  Nutrition and infant and young child feeding practices are still a major concern, and the percentage of children receiving Vitamin A supplements declined, but for the most part, the news was positive.  Bangladesh is one of not too many countries that is actually on track to meet some of it's Millennium Development Goals.  It's also positive for me and our team to be able to link health communication with the needs that still exist in Bangladesh.  Families who have access to coordinated and accurate health information can make better decisions with regards to family planning, nutrition, and delivery and child care, etc.  Our project is working to improve access to and use of health information by providing tools and resources to frontline health workers.  We'll be doing a pilot targeting a small number of health workers in distinct low-performing areas of the country.  Insha'Allah, our pilot will show that our approach is effective (at least in some ways) and we'll be able to scale it up to include more health workers in more parts of the country.

Today was a pretty slow day because unfortunately there was a nation-wide hartal, or strike, organized by the opposition party.  I won't go into the details, and I definitely don't understand all of them, but a government official with the opposition party was kidnapped, and his party has blamed the current government and is demanding his return.  Their primary tactic for getting attention seems to be calling a nation-wide strike in which they prevent transport of buses and private cars, so shops don't open and people can't travel.  The official was not found/released today, so the strike was also extended for tomorrow.  The strikes have very negatively affected an important workshop we had planned for today and tomorrow, but we're trying to make due by postponing and shortening it.  If you're interested, you can read more here: http://bdnews24.com/details.php?cid=3&id=222984&hb=top