secret to survival here

Spoke to my dad today and we've concocted a theory-dehydration is the major reason some of us feel so "unwell" when we come to Bangladesh. In an attempt to keep our bowels moving normally we avoid certain foods and may not have ready access to bottled water. Oral Rehydration Therapy is widespread here, with the use of a solution called orsaline, a packet of mixed ingredients including mostly sodium chloride, potassium and glucose--which if mixed with 500 ml of water will readily replace the losses seen with diarrhea/vomiting. This is incredibly important here in general because of the rampant cholera and other diarrheal diseases that claim thousands of lives purely b/c of the inability to replace rapid losses of electrolytes and fluids. The use of orsaline has saved many lives since its inception and with a cost of about 3 tk (1 usd=80 tk), it is absolutely affordable. Why I bring this up is that while here I"ve been regularly attempting to consume one packet of orsaline a day. Over the last few days i've been unable to keep up with that and have been developing a morning headache, dry mouth..general feeling of uneasiness which is alleviated when I consume a few glasses of water and have something to eat, my guess is that I am generally a bit dehyrated and daily usage of orsaline is a great way to maintain my volume status...it's a theory..the idea came more or less from my dad but i'm attempting to experiment on myself while here, see if there's any validity to it.

No work today on account of the fact that I was sick myself...and saved with the use of orsaline...an unexpected twist to the story...i'm feeling better, and will be off to Sylhet tomorrow to make some village visits and see a few aspects of public health medicine with respect to pediatrics. Probably will not be able to update from there, I'll write everything down and will definitely update when I return in a few days.