11.26.15 Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all of my friends every where. Last year I celebrated in Yap with good friends, good food and good conversation. Will do the same this year.

In terms of the green boat men, the Lt. Gov of Yap sent a letter to the national government asking them to lift the ban of visitors (which apparently included the nurses) for the green boat refugees. Will keep you informed of the progress. It has been one year since they arrived in Yap. Our thoughts and prayers are with them and their families.

From my home to yours, May you have a very happy Thanksgiving Day, and if you do not celebrate the holiday, may you take a moment to reflect on the blessings you may have received during this past year.

 

11.22.15 Updates all around

It has been a while since I last posted as I had no internet connectivity at home! Imagine that. They upgraded service in my town but my modem was insufficient to stay connected. This has now been resolved - fortunately a technician was able to come out to the house and fix the problems.

In terms of the green boat men, I have heard that there are no updates. That means the men are no longer allowed visitors by order of the national government agency. But I am told that they do have food and the basics. I am sorry to report I have no other new information.

I do hear from my Public Health friends and it seems everyone is doing well. They also see Shorty and  he is doing well, aside from missing me.

In addition to work, I spend most of my time taking care of my boys Fionnegan and Gunnarr, watching football and working on our foundation Health and Education for All and the project in Bangladesh. We are trying to fund raise for the health on wheels program for garment factory workers. We have also included rasing funds for my areas of interest in Yap.

The Patriots are doing very well - great game last Sunday as we won by one point with 6 seconds left in the game. I never doubt the skills of one Tom Brady qb extraordinaire!

Hard to stay awake when your team is playing late at night!

Stephen Gostkowski's field goal at the last seconds won the game against the Giants. Always a tough game for the Patriots.

This is how we get all ticks - playing in the woods!

 

11.07.15 green boat men update

Not much has changed. Visitors can talk to the men at the "rope" but no one is allowed to enter. UN may have granted refugee status to two men, although I do not know which ones. And two grocery stores will not be provising food and other provisions to the men while this continues.

11.04.15 The twins turn two!

Fionnegan and Gunnarr turned two. We had a fun day, with party hats and a pretend cake and doggy ice cream thanks to Auntie Paula. The boys went out for a walk and ran and played on the soccer fields and baseball fields. After running and playing, they sleep very well.

On a not so fun side, they also got a bath!

For fun, added the play cake as a hat. There were no birthday party hats in the petfood store, so instead I made use of the cake and a Santa hat.

All wet after a bath in the kitchen sink. All three of us were soaking wet.

Now nice and clean, smelling fresh from the shampoo and condition, too.

 

11.01.15 green boat men

No news about their situation. Last week the national  officials still did not permit visits. Will post when I learn of any new developments.

10.31.15 MIT Presentation on Social Initiatives Beyond Borders

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Bangladesh Fusion student group invited us to present our work conducted in Bangladesh. It was a great opportunity for Ruhul and myself to share the work we have started as well as to obtain some technical assistance in creating our electronic forms and data storage. They are the right people!

The students were great - very welcoming, asked excellent questions, and had good ideas. It was also fun to  be back in the college "environment".

Our foundation is a 501c(3) organization named Health on Wheels for All. The project for garment factory workers is under the project name of Health on Wheels. You can find more about this on www.healthonwheels-usa.

While we have started our foundation work in Bangladesh, we are including projects in Yap and will entertain other project sites as we are funded.

Here are a few of our slides to let you know about the scope of our work in Bangladesh.