Ready for take off!

Im sitting in the kitchen at my parents house in Tisselskog. My bags are packed and my dad and I will head to the airport in about an hour. I'm not so much looking forward to the flight but can't wait to get to my destination in Dhaka and let the adventure begin! 

(Although when I hugged my boy good bye yesterday I was almost considering canceling the whole trip.. )

When I was in Härnösand I was lucky enough to bump into the very nice Chiran from India in the kitchen at SIDA. He is studying in Sundsvall and was in Härnösand to talk to the MFS-students there about India. We had a chat and he ended up giving me the contact info to his friend Hasan that lives in Dhaka. Turns out this was a stroke of luck! 

When I woke up this morning I had an email from my guest house saying that their driver was on leave and was not able to pick me up, but they suggested I would call another driver and gave me his number. When I went to my room to get my phone I had a missed call, which turned out to be from Hasan. He asked me if I had arranged to get picked up and when I said no, he offered to do it! Even when I told him it is 5am in the morning! What an angel!!

Catch you on the flip side! (=Dhaka)

Why Bangladesh?

I just realized that I haven't mentioned why I'm going to Dhaka and what I will be doing there! :)

As a part of the psychologist program degree in Sweden the students spend (almost all of) the last semester writing a graduation thesis. This can be within a very large area of subjects. After a lot of thinking I decided to try and apply for one of the "SIDA Minor Field Study Scholarships" that the Department of Psychology offers every year. After being in contact with at least 30 different NGO's around the world, I got in contact with a Legal Aid Organisation in Dhaka that were interested in cooperating. Together we decided to focus my study on Help-seeking processes in Bangladeshi women subjected to Intimate Partner Violence (IPV).  After finally getting my application accepted in June I was lucky to get a superb supervisor in Ph.D Mina Sedem who has been, and will be, an enormous support in my study.

Because of it's sensitive subject I will not be writing about the study it self in this blog, but rather my experiences of living in Dhaka and traveling through Bangladesh.

If you understand swedish you can find more details about my study at
http://www.psychology.su.se/om-oss/nyheter/ida-martinsson-far-institutionens-mfs-stipendium-1.97809

Salwar kameez!

I got a nice little parcel in the mail today: My very first Salwar Kameez! 

Its filled with embroidered pearls and even has tiny little bells at the end of the scarf. So beautiful. And comfortable! 

SIDA's 3-day introductory course!

I'm spending three days in beautiful Härnösand for the SIDA 3-day introductory course.
 (SIDA: Swedish Board of International Developement Cooperation)

                                           (The beautiful Härnösand SIDA-building)
                             
I arrived last night and didn't have a clue about how to get from the train station to SIDA, but was lucky enough to ask a very sweet couple for directions as they ended up driving me there. Considering the 5 degrees Celsius outside you can imagine my gratitude. I ensured them that a truck load of good karma would be coming their way.

Today has been intense but fun and very useful. I was stoked to find one of my classmates in the breakfast room this morning! He is going on a MFS to Malawi but I didn't know he was going to be here. It is always nice to see a familiar face.

The lectures started at 8 am this morning and finished at 9 pm. Tomorrow will be just as intense and the day will end with a scheduled Skype-call with a person from Bangladesh that I get to ask about anything I want to know! Yay! I've got about one hundred questions already. Poor hen (:him/her).

ONE WEEK LEFT!!

Two weeks left!

Little travel bugs are slowly sneaking up on me! Only two weeks left. This very writing minute two weeks from now (12.45pm) my plane for Dhaka will be closing its doors. Excitement, anticipation, butterflies, nervousness and a little bit of worry. I still havn't managed to find accommodation.