We have arrived

After much planning and preparations and a tremendous amount of help from our families, we departed for Dhaka, Bangladesh last Thursday, August 14. We arrived in the capital about 28 hours after leaving Houston. Ezra did really well on the flights and was mostly happy and entertaining other passengers. He seems to have baby jet lag now and will need more time to adjust to the new time zone. We are 11 hours ahead of Central Daylight Time (will be 12 hours ahead when you go off daylight saving time in the fall).

The weather here is warm and humid with daily rain showers - in fact, it's so humid that my glasses fog up when I walk out of an air conditioned building. For this reason it is also very green with plants and trees, which is quite lovely. We have only seen a little bit of the country so far, mostly from the window of the car when traveling (on the left side of the road) from the airport to our hotel. We did venture out to do some shopping today, which confirmed that we need to learn Bangla fast. Many people speak some English and a few speak it very well however this can only get us so far (especially trying to haggle at the markets). It is definitely a busy place with people everywhere. Physically, it is similar to other developing countries we have been to (poor roads, no sidewalks, etc) but it is amazing how technology is far beyond these limitations, including "free WiFi" at our hotel and nearby restaurants. We have a received a very warm welcome from the people here and we are looking forward to going north to Rangpur tomorrow, where we will live for the duration of our time in Bangladesh.