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New Panigram Intern!

Posted by Kristin Boekhoff on September 5th, 2009

Panigram Intern Molly Johnson Tackles Waste Management

The phones were ringing off the hook on August 18th. My summer interns were due to go back to the United States that day and everyone from the village in Jessore called to say goodbye. It was a tearful departure; I think that most of the interns would have stayed in Bangladesh if they didn’t have to go back to school. Chi Chi’s boy group, Jonathon’s gang, and even our construction manager called multiple times - always asking when the interns were coming back to Bangladesh. As we said our watery farewells, the interns promised to come back for a reunion after the resort is open.

Fortunately, I didn’t have much time to mourn their departure as I had another Cornell intern scheduled to arrive early the next morning. Like my other interns, Molly had seen the summer internship advertisement. She decided that a summer was not enough for her, however, so she worked with the Engineering School to set up a co-operative semester at Panigram Resort. Cornell has a program called the Co-operative Extension where Engineering students take a semester’s worth of classes in the summer and then they spend the fall semester their junior year and the following summer working at a company as an engineer. Not only did Molly take the required 17 (!) credits of engineering coursework in a summer session that is half as long as the normal semesters, but she also worked part-time at a local restaurant!

I was very impressed with Molly’s initiative to set up this program and was excited to have a student engineer working on my project. One of the (many!) lessons that we learned working on the pavilion this summer is that waste disposal in the village is an issue; there is no formal municipal waste management. Consequently, I have Molly (who is studying to be a civil engineer) looking at various options for the resort including creating a “luxury” composting toilet, and figuring out how we can reduce, reuse, and recycle at our eco resort. She is an intrepid young woman who is eager to be immersed in Bangladeshi culture. Here is Molly’s introduction in her own words:

Molly

Molly

Molly Johnson

As I exited the airport after a long flight from the U.S., I saw Kristin waiting in the reception area. She welcomed me to Bangladesh and then informed me about a little hitch with the transportation back to her house – she had taken her scooter to the airport because she couldn’t find any taxis that early in the morning (my flight was due in at 6am). We both agreed that my luggage would not fit on her scooter, so she asked me if I would be okay in a taxi by myself if she was following right behind me. I had no objections, so we searched for a reasonably priced taxi.

When we finally found one and I settled in, I started to feel a bit apprehensive; I didn’t speak a single word of Bangla and the chaos of the airport was a bit overwhelming. My apprehension quickly subsided, however, as I sat in the taxi and absorbed the strange, “organized chaos” that is the Bangladeshi traffic system.

As we drove to her apartment, I discovered the advantages of owning a scooter - Bangladeshi drivers do not drive in the marked lanes, or follow any traffic rules for that matter. If you have a scooter or motorcycle, you essentially have free reign over the road and can drive around the cars. Since then I have continued to reap the benefits of having a scooter as Kristin and I have traveled around Dhaka.

A bit of background on me: I was born in New Hampshire and grew up in North Carolina. One of my favorite things to do is curl up anywhere comfortable, drink tea or coffee, and read a book. I have been a competitive swimmer for almost my entire life, and I love to dance and play golf. I am a junior Civil Engineering student at Cornell University, with an interest in structures. I was also a member of Cornell’s Formula Society of Automotive Engineers (FSAE) racing team my freshman year.

I am in Bangladesh for the semester and will return the following summer to complete the required 28 weeks of the Cornell Engineering Co-op Program. I found out about this opportunity when I received an email from the Engineering Department mentioning the Panigram summer internship.  After reading about the resort and what Kristin was doing, I was ecstatic because it was exactly what I want to do: work with alternative materials to create beautiful structures.  I set up my co-op position with her so that I could be part of this project for a longer period and would be able to be more deeply involved.

My two main projects for Panigram this semester are to design a luxury composting toilet for the resort and to design the waste management system. The composting toilet and waste management system tie in with the goal of the resort to use alternative energy and leave as small of a carbon footprint as possible. I am excited to see what the coming months will bring; I know my activities here will beat doing problem sets and taking exams, hands down!

Categories: Interns, Internships, News, Responsible Hospitality, Sustainable Design | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Comments: 11

11 Responses to “New Panigram Intern!”

  1. Julian Tracy says:
    April 23, 2010 at 10:32 am

    Good day, your content would make for authentic great studying. presently there is not enough blogs outthere in which have outstanding studying material, great thumbs up from me and i’ll be hanging around quite a bit in the future.

  2. Sajeed Ahmed says:
    March 27, 2010 at 3:49 am

    Hey Kristin! Awesome job! This place honestly seems unreal. . it is one of the achievements Bangladesh has seen in a long long time. And it couldn’t have been possible without you.
    Can’t wait to go visit this resort next time I go to BD! I’ll take as many fiends as i can and start spreading the word around asap!!

    Sajeed
    Chem Eng
    McMaster University
    ON, Canada

  3. Molly says:
    November 30, 2009 at 9:15 am

    Ashik,
    This has been an extremely valuable experience for me on the job and off the job. Like you said, construction materials are more difficult to find than in the US. In Bangladesh, there is no Home Depot I can run to down the street. However, that has helped to enhance my creativity. In fact sometimes I end up going to three or four different places to find what I need, although this is not because any store is lacking an item. Most stores have the exact same items, the trick is, who can be haggled with the most to give the best price on that one item. When I first came
    to Bangladesh I was warned that I would have to haggle for everything, and I didn’t believe it until I entered my first store.

    While here I’ve done a little bit of work with mud and consulting with bamboo. It was great for me to learn about the different properties of the materials: how to know when the mud is mixed enough,
    to see how the mud sticks together, how the mud dries, how much weight bamboo can hold, the bending properties of bamboo, and more. Mud and bamboo, alternate materials to steel and concrete, are best suited for areas like this and are plentiful here. These two materials are what sparked my interest in this internship and this resort.

    About the air conditioning, that is not a problem at all. Although, maybe that is because I came towards the end of monsoon season as things were cooling off from the hot summer. I have lived places for the summer that are hot and humid like here and had no air conditioning. I didn’t find it to be a problem and think it’s better for you anyway because it puts you more in touch with the environment around you.

    This experience has been very rewarding, and I still have three weeks left this term which I am sure will bring even more new and exciting experiences. I love getting to live in this different culture and learn and embrace all of their traditions. The people of Bangladesh are teaching me a lot of lessons I could never learn in the US.

    Thank you for your questions!

  4. Ashik says:
    November 27, 2009 at 7:24 am

    Well, Nice to read Molly’s story. I am a Bangladeshi graduate student at Texas Tech University, US.

    I was just wondering whether the experience is valuable to molly, because the construction materials in Bangladesh is very different than in USA. Also the BD houses usually do not have air conditioning system, which is an indispensable feature in US.

  5. kamaluddin kabir says:
    October 5, 2009 at 1:22 am

    Kristin
    tomake obhinandon !

  7. son of karnaphuli says:
    September 17, 2009 at 12:18 pm

    Extraordinary accomplishment kristin……..
    extra..extra..extraorinary. You have the deep insight of finding natural beauty & atmosphere of a place, then beautifying more
    Today, I declare you THE DAUGHTER OF MAGANGA
    God bless you!

  8. Md. Rafiqul Islam says:
    September 10, 2009 at 4:37 pm

    Dear Kristin Boekhoff,
    I am Rafiq, now living in Germany. I worked with VSO (2004-2006)and later, trained Mikey Leung on Bangladeshi Culture and Religion. Since then, we have friendship.
    I am so proud of you Kristin. I am inviting my friends in Europe and USA to visit Panigram. What can I do for you?
    When I shall be in Bangladesh, I should visit your resort.
    May God bless you dear Kristin. I wish all of your success and dream with Bangladesh.

  9. Kristin Boekhoff says:
    September 10, 2009 at 11:52 am

    Tasbir your comment made me chuckle! Yes, Bangladesh truly is a hidden treasure. The people may be financially poor, but their life and culture are rich.

    I think many of us “city dwellers” deep down crave to reconnect with the land. I have seen some amazing transformations in friends of mine that have come to Panigram. One of my successful ex-investment banker investors couldn’t wait to go for a boat ride in the rain. Another friend of mine came to the pavilion in his “city clothes” and by the end of the day had stripped down to just a gamcha loin cloth to go swimming in the river!

    My interns and I have a running joke that everyone gets to be a 12 year old boy (or girl!) again when they come to the Bangladeshi countryside. It is wonderful to escape your daily stresses and relax in a place of raw natural beauty.

  10. Tasbir Alam says:
    September 10, 2009 at 9:42 am

    Aashadharan!!

    I do not believe this place is in Bangladesh! Its like heaven!!! God bless you Kristin. I now live in New York, far away from my lovely but poor Bangladesh and a New Yorker
    showed me how rich my country is,
    Thanks. Hopefully visit this place in near future.

  11. Chi-Chi Lin says:
    September 6, 2009 at 10:10 pm

    Brian, Jon, Janine, and I got together last night for a reunion! It was so much fun. We had a few other friends with us and we entertained them with a TON of Bangladesh stories!

    We all agree that Molly is so lucky to be in Bangladesh right now!!! We miss it so much!

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