Measures taken to curtail encroaching
river bank erosion (Photo
by Kathy Sundstedt) |
After four days in an urban area, a day of fieldwork in the countryside was most welcome. Leaving Dhaka, we saw its outer ring of steel mills and brick factories, their smokestacks were the only vertical feature in a very green horizontal landscape. The road to Louhaganj, the district capital of Munshigangi, was built within the last 30 years and is significantly built up. Before that, water transport was used to get to and from Dhaka. Louhaganji and its population of 30,000 is 32 km (about 20 miles) from Dhaka, but it took about three hours to get there.
From a bus window, there is always something to look at. There are a variety of housing styles: houses built on stilts near the river, houses made of corrugated iron, the straw, Quonset-hut shaped houses, and those made of brick covered in stucco. We saw burlap tied together like tall corn shocks or hanging to dry, banana trees, palm trees, and crops unfamiliar to Iowans; children and cattle swimming in ponds and bayou backwater, fishing weirs, too.
An auditorium that collapsed
as a result of river bank
erosion (Photo by Kathy Sundstedt) |
The river we saw is a tributary of the Ganges, perhaps 1/4 mile across. We took a motor boat that would easily carry 20 people across the river to a new resort that is being built. By September when the resort opens, other weary urbanites will be able to rent a lofted apartment on stilts for about $60-$70 a night, full board included. Wastewater is collected in a holding tank beneath each apartment linked by a common boardwalk.
Returning to Louhaganj, we saw the effects of flooding: the auditorium was partly collapsed into the river. Pole sized trees were woven into a grid, holding the bank in place. These coastal embankments are controversial—while some areas may be helped, others downstream may suffer.
A newly built resort for weary
urbanites (Photo by Luke Juran |
After a walk through the village, we bussed a short distance to the Ganges River. As there was no bridge, busses and trucks were being ferried across the swift chalky river, which is wide enough here to make the Mississippi River at Dubuque seem like a creek. Whitewater appears in the middle of the channel. This great river which drains from the Himalayas can only be described as impressive.
A bridge that we’ll cross tomorrow as we leave Dhaka for Rajshahi is 6 km across, and one currently under construction by the Japanese will be crossing an even larger span.
-- Written by Kathy Sundstedt from Waverly,
a teacher at Dike-New Hartford Schools