Pre-departure update

Inaugural post! Yay!
Thank you all for joining me as I embark on this adventure. To be honest, I don't really know what I'm getting myself into over the next 100 days. The plane tickets are booked, the visas are stamped, and the bags are packed (ok, no they aren't. But at least I've started). And yet, I have no idea what to expect when I finally set foot in Bangladesh in a couple of days. I haven't even had the proper time to process this whole thing; exams consumed have me for so long, and even since they finished I've just been saying goodbyes and trying to get all the last minute travel arrangements in place. So, knowing that there will be people reading this at home and elsewhere will, I'm sure, be very, very comforting.

Perhaps saying that "I have no idea what to expect" seems a little extreme to some readers. I mean, I know who I'm going to work with, and where I'm going to be, and I have a job description. So let me fill you in on what I know so far:

On May 5th, I arrive in Dhaka, Bangladesh at 5:15am, local time. For the first couple weeks, I'll be staying at the head office of Dipshikha, a Bangladeshi non-governmental organization (NGO), in Dhaka. Dipshikha is a socio-economic development organization, aiming to "bring about self-reliance of the people by achieving the main goals for sustainable development". They have a pretty holistic, comprehensive approach to development, putting emphasis on education, healthcare, microcredit and human rights.

After my first two weeks at head office, I'll head north to my main location: the village of Rudrapur in the Dinajpur Division (hence the name of this blog). Here I'll stay for the remainder of my 11 weeks with Dipshikha, at which point I'll flight out of Dhaka again and begin backpacking in India. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

In Rudrapur, I'll be working in Dipshikha's education department. My job will (apparently) be to assess the education programs they have on site and look for areas for improvement. I will make recommendations for cost-effective solutions to problems I find, and will advise on how they can be implemented. I'll be focusing, specifically, on English-language learning and programming.

No, I am not particularly qualified for all this. But I was a student trustee in high school. Maybe that'll count for something...

Here's a map of Bangladesh, with Dipshikha's project sites marked. See if you can find Dhaka and Dinajpur (I know, the big pointers make it difficult!).

Well, that's all I can think of to tell you right now. Oh, did I mention I'm excited?!?! Yeah, VERY excited!!!! How could I not be, right? But maybe it didn't come across in my writing. Probably because before anything exciting actually happens, I have 19 and a half hours of plane ride to enjoy. Woo...
Total travel time from departure from Pearson International to Dhaka, including stopovers, is about 24 hours. More if you include the time to get to Toronto from home.

Tomorrow evening I leave Toronto (6:20pm) for Heathrow. Perhaps as I waste time in any of the 4 airports I'll be in over the next couple days, I'll think of something new to bring you up to date on.
Until then,

Cameron