Getting close

Back to the travel clinic today to get my Dukoral, an oral vaccine for Cholera and Diarrhea. This is taken in 2 doses, 1 week apart, before departure. The cost was $75.

Checking the current weather in Dhaka, I note the daytime temperatures over the next few days range from 29 to 36 degrees Celsius, dropping to 23 to 24 degrees at night. Lots of showers and thunder-showers.

Also hearing from a few stragglers who are just now getting around to making good on their pledges to donate bedkits. Every one helps.

Visa received

With about a month to go, I got my passport back from the Bangladesh High Commission in Ottawa, with a visa stamp for entry to the country. The process took about 2 weeks. Total fees and courier costs were just over $100.

Still hearing from a few last minute bedkit donors who had pledged earlier this summer.

The floods are receding in Bangladesh, but are leaving waterborne diseases in their wake. Large areas of croplands were also destroyed, exacerbating a continuing food security problem in this country of 150 million people.

Five weeks to go

In five weeks from today, we will be departing Toronto for London and then on to Dhaka. Linda at Sleeping Children says anyone planning to make a bedkit donation for Bangladesh should do it within the next week. If you have been procrastinating, you can print a donation form at http://www.scaw.org/about/help.html.

Many thanks to all friends, neighbours, relatives and colleagues who have generously supported this effort.

They are having serious flooding in Bangladesh. Although the worst seems to over, the situation in the central parts of the country is still really bad. Major highways out of Dhaka, the capital, are impassable due to deep water. Three children drowned on Sunday.