Understanding Bangladesh

POEM: 'Mothers wade to work'

By Shatadol Chakraborty
(translated by Farhad Ahmed)

The rains come.
The city’s grand mansions wetted into safe field mice nests.
The silver-robed magician in his air-conditioned lair has never been caught in the rain.
After the meeting, the white car whisks him away to his marble-and-glass palace where water means mineral water, cooler, geyser.

In America when it rains, avenues are not water-logged.
Rows of colorful umbrellas hoist a rainwater fair.
And choruses rise in schools, “Rain, rain, come again.…”

In Third World alleys, rainwaters heave and toss.
Mothers of tiny children wade to work.
Fathers repair shacks, lean-tos, thatch roofs.
The tea stall boy is slapped for breaking a cup—

Yet, it rains, and boys and girls naked frolic in the mud slime with the Gods.

Source: The Daily Star. Dhaka, Bangladesh. 28 July 2007, p. 21.

July 28: Cruisin' in Rangamati

When looking over my notes for today one word stands out: epic. This is the story of our epic journey into the Rangamati area of the Chittagong Hill Tracks.

The day did not start off too great. Several of us have the sniffles and coughs so we had to stop at the local pharmacy for menthol and cough syrup. However, we got a good laugh out of the situation; when someone mentioned hearing George loudly blowing his nose that morning he quipped “Yes, and when I opened my door there were 2,000 Muslims outside who thought that I had done the call to prayer.” I have quickly learned one must have a sense of humor to survive four weeks in a van with sixteen other (sick and sweaty) people.

Soon we began to notice a steep rise in elevation and a tightening in the curves of the road. We had entered the Hill Tracks. For those who do not know, the Chittagong Hill Tracks span the length of the southeast branch of Bangladesh and are a notoriously dangerous place for tourists, especially after the recent kidnapping of a Danish man. In short, the trouble in this area is mostly due to conflict between the tribal groups and the plains people. Although Rangamati is the safest area of the Hill Tracks, foreigners are still required to stop at several checkpoints and have armed guards while in certain areas.

Once in the city of Rangamati we arrived at the Rangamati-Kaptai Lake. This lake was artificially made in 195 after the damming of the Karnaphuli River. Unlike the Coralville Reservoir, the Karnaphuli River was dammed for generating power. During this process many people were displaced and live scattered about the region.

At the lake we boarded a boat for an afternoon tour of the massive lake. The scenery was astounding. The giant hills were covered in forests of teak, banana, and other tropical plans. Portions of the land were cultivated with various crops (such as ginger, tamarack, and pineapple) often as thum or shifting cultivation. The sky also played an important role in the area’s beauty. A panoramic picture would include giant white cumulus clouds against a royal blue sky that contrasted with low grey clouds that misted rain over mountain tops. A picture does not even come close to portraying how impressive the scenery was.

For lunch we stopped at the charming Peda Ting Tin Restaurant where we were served the local treat- bamboo. It was served in cooked in a vegetable dish with gravy and breaded and fried. It had the texture of a dense mushroom and is a vegetarian’s delight! We were also served chicken that was cooked in large bamboo shoots and fish from the local lake.

The next highlight of the cruise was stopping at a large waterfall. There were disembarked and climbed the slippery rocks to stick our hands in the falls.

We were out about ten minutes when the wind suddenly picked up and we heard frantic calls to come back to the boat- the monsoon rains were coming.

I was surprised at how quickly the sprinkles turned to a heavy downpour. I was not the only one to come back to the boat drenched!

After our cruise we headed back through the beautiful hills towards Chittagong.

Although the roads were not as busy as Dhaka, this ride was still nerve wracking. It probably had to do with taking hairpin turns at thirty miles per hour in the wrong lane with no idea what was around the turn!

But our wonderful driver got us back safe and sound as always.

-- Sarah Dorpinghaus

High fashion and futbol on the beach

Do you remember Frankie and Annette from the beach blanket movies of the 1950’s? Maybe you have seen those movies as originals or the really bad re-runs, either way, if you thought that they were conservative, welcome to Bangladesh Baywatch! Swimwear takes on a whole new meaning on the beach at Cox’s Bazar. Everything you see at the local Iowa pool on a hot day would make the beachwear we have seen look a really bad beach movie. In the same camera shot, we saw burqas, hood and all, what we would consider fancy evening wear, and men in lungis splashing and frolicking in the waves. It was kind of fun to watch with all of the people who have been staring at us, it was fun to stare at them for a while. We were wearing normal swimwear, and we looked radical. To quote the day, it was bizarre at Cox’s Bazar.

As the day ended, we also saw the international appeal of futbol. While summer soccer leagues ended at home in Iowa and our thoughts are turning to American football in the fall, we all saw the appeal of the game on the beach this afternoon. We at one time had two tour guides, three middle school teachers, two very respected university professors, and five various states of children, from beggars to hawkers playing a game of pass on the beach. My favorite moment of the day was the boy who stopped by and not speaking any English, just starting kicking the ball with shouts that were only understood as, ”pass it to me.” That we did and it was hard not to think of the old commercials fhrom the World Cup last summer, you must remember, “All over the world everyone, no matter who we are or where we are from, we all smile in the same language, futbol.” I can see why the game of futbol has so much international appeal, as we witnessed this afternoon, it brings everyone together.

-- George

July 30: Water, water everywhere ...

A police-escorted drive into the countryside outside Sylhet provided us with visual images of the current flooding situation. Frequent bus stops gave us opportunities to get up close and personal with the people and scenery we usually only view from bus windows.

We have been assured that what looks like threatening flooding is in fact normal flooding, as the area around Sylhet has annual precipitation of 177 inches, all in the form of rain. At our first stop, Rex Honey interviewed a local retired postal worker who had hired a boat to get there from his flooded home.

The gentleman described conditions in the area--homes are flooded, school is cancelled, and fishing is currently poor. If there would be no more rain, the waters would recede over a week or two. However, there will be more rain.

I observed more lambs and livestock on the roadside than in days past, as they have been brought to safety on higher ground from flooded residences. Children were playing happily with a day off from school--experimenting with oversized fishing nets, riding naked on hand-built rafts, balancing on tops of posts protruding out of the water, swimming, bathing, and carrying siblings on their hips through deep water on footpaths.

I looked out over the floodwaters and kept repeating, as if to convince myself, “This is normal!”

Flooding is normal in Bangladesh, and people have adjusted to flooding as a way of life. In other seasons, today’s fishermen are farmers and small businessmen, women focus on work related to their homes, and children go to school.

Epilogue

Given personal time this afternoon, Linda arranged escorts for the two of us to an Internet café, where I spent a precious hour reading and sending emails for 37 Taka, just over 50 cents. That was a bargain!

But the best “deal” I got was my ride back to the hotel—I’m going to get a lot of mileage out of the tale of my ride in the back seat of a police vehicle. Each tour guide told me tonight at dinner that I had honored the policemen by taking their pictures. I’ll honor them again by sharing one of the photos here.

July 25: Chittagong to Cox’s Bazar

Fields … vegetables, sugar cane, rice fields … freshly plowed, either by hand, by oxen plow, or mini-tractor. A small town… cities, tight squeezes, and near misses on the highway. Men loading and unloading trucks. Rickshaws picking up and dropping off customers. Dogs, goats, cows, and people, thousands of people pass by on the way from the port city of Chittagong to our new location of Cox’s Bazar (yes one a), home of one of the longest beaches in the region.

Roads in Bangladesh are narrow, two lane highways with a small shoulder that is almost constantly filled with people or animals. Organized villages, moveable shops, and squatter communities sprout up along the highway. When we see this narrowing process, the road narrows because the shoulder is being used for human and animal uses. As the road narrows, traffic congestion increases, reducing speeds, and adding time to the journey.

In this photo, multiple modes of transportation in a village can be seen. The roads are indeed marked, but the proper uses of the markings can be ‘negotiable’ based on the circumstance.

Our Iowa experience concerning traffic is to hop onto the interstate, set the cruise control, and go. Even on two lane highways, country roads, and gravel, speed can be kept pretty constant. We have all made way for the tractor during planting season or the combine at harvest time in the fall. You may see a line of five to ten cars waiting to safely make their way around the farm equipment. We have to slow traffic down a few times during a country drive a couple times a year.

With Bangladesh, things are a little different, with the same square miles as Iowa and fifty times the people; there are several rice planting and harvest seasons, which makes for a constant flow of farming equipment. Additionally, here in Bangladesh there are narrow roads, many small tractors, plows, and rickshaws carrying crops. So our Iowa experience is multiplied several times over.

Moving on…

We made a small stop at a BRAC office for a little break. BRAC is an acronym for Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee. In the hallway of the building there was a poster series on living a proper life. The message of the poster series was that both men and women created this world and they must work together to succeed. Some of the components of BRAC projects are education, empowerment through micro-credit loans, and health.

Along the lines of health, we made a side stop at a hospital in Malumghat, outside Cox’s Bazar. On the plane from the UK, Kay Weller, from UNI, sat next to a couple who worked at a hospital. During the flight, she made arrangements to stop by at the hospital when we were close by, and this we did as a side-stop for the day. We were greeted by the hospital administrator, who was the father of the young man Kay met on the plane. He was originally from Peoria, Illinois, so there was an instant Midwest connection. The son, that Kay sat next to on the plane, rode up on a motorcycle and we toured the hospital. This hospital sees about 300,000 people in a year’s time, so it is a busy place. Most of the people who access the hospital are impoverished. To combat these hardships and others like being all alone, or with no family support, the hospital has a shop to create small things to sell. Personally, I am not a big shopper, but when you can put someone to work for a good cause, count me in. So anyone expecting little Bangladeshi gifts… be pretty certain that they came from this shop.

After seeing pond water everywhere for the last few weeks and being advised not to swim in it, the Bay of Bengal was a welcome sight.

When the time came to reach the sea, we crested a small hill and the sea was in plain sight. After lunch, we got on our swimwear and headed to the beach.

Swimwear is loose term, because by our standards, you probably would be under dressed at this beach. We were about the only folks in shorts, the native lungi (men’s cotton mid-wrap) and saris were commonly seen on the beach.

Needless to say splashing around in the Bay of Bengal was splendid!

After dinner we watched a family just outside the hotel property. A family of 7 lives in a small hut that farms a small piece of ground and takes care of a couple of cows.

Although it does not sound like the perfect evening activity, I learned a lot about the family and their way of life. Not really the type of life we would call ideal, but they seemed happy and it was clear there was a great deal of happiness in the family.

--Dan Walsh, Cedar Rapids