Sunday, 20 April 2014

A photo only blog post

United Airlines Bangladesh - complete with dead cockroaches inside the windows...but we took off and landed and are home safe.

A passenger boat crossing the Padma

At the start of the great Bangla run....13 miles in 30 degree heat.  Only 1 toenail lost

And the winners - clearly managed it far faster than me!

A birthday cake for a 3 year old boy - guess what is was meant to be (and name the book!)

Sorting rubbish by the side of the outflow from the Dhaka water pumping station - designed to help keep Dhaka dry(ish) during the monsoon.

Want to vote?  Pineapples, inkwells, swans - all for elections and all to support people who can't read or write

Thai 'hot wheels'.  Brilliant.

Poo sticks.  Literally.  For fuelwood.
And back to United Airlines.  



Cyclones, salt water and the surface of the moon


Some of the women in Koyra who had homes washed away during cyclone Sidr and Aila
 So we are now in the summer season in Bangladesh.   

There are 6 seasons overall:
  • Summer consists of Baishakh and Jaistha and lasts from mid April to mid-June.  It’s hot and dry.  There can be cyclones as the weather heats up.  Last year was cyclone Mahesan.
  • The monsoon consists of ‘Ashar’ and ‘Sravan’.  Basically hot, cloudy and wet. Roughly June – August/September.
  • Autumn. Bhadra and Arshin – roughly September – October.  There is another (higher) risk of cyclones during this time.  Dengue season is peaking around now.
  • Late autumn which consists of ‘Kartic’ and ‘Agrahayan’
  • Winter which consists of ‘Poush’ and ‘Magh’ – roughly December and January
  • And Spring which consists of  'Falgoon' and 'Chaitra' – roughly mid February – mid April.  The weather is lovely.  Temperature is good.
So soon there will be the risk of cyclones associated with the first cyclone season of the year although the main season is later on, towards the end of the monsoon.  Cyclones hit the south of the country and have caused mass loss of life and destruction in the past.  As a result, Bangladesh now has a relatively well developed early warning system (for example, it has extended the warning time from 2 to 5 days) and is investing in a wide range of structures and other approaches to help reduce the risk to people living in the cyclone belt.  Cyclone shelters are part of this. 

I went to Koyra in South West Bangladesh to visit some cyclone shelters under construction.  This area was the subject of a very good recent NY times article on Bangladesh in the face of climate change:

A review after Cyclones Aila and Sidr showed a need for more than 2000 cyclone shelters in this area to provide refuge for those at risk of cyclones.  A visit to the area shows a landscape like the moon.  The land is barren and little appears to grow.  Salt is clearly visible in the soil.  On the other side of the river from one location you can see the green lushness of the sundarbans which is in stark contrast to the desolate landscape in which people are surviving.  Cyclone shelters are being built to provide multi-purpose structures which the communities can use during normal conditions.  For the most cases they are used as schools, complete with water, electricity and sanitation.  An improvement on what went before but obviously also with additional costs associated with maintenance. 
The surface of the moon...


A kids selfie - I love this one
Below are some pictures to help illustrate the conditions and also give some ideas as to what a cyclone shelter actually looks like:


A small house in Koyra



A finished cyclone shelter - complete with school upstairs and solar panels





It's hot in the city


Kids on a boat in Bairsal - the woman charges 1 Taka per person to journey across
So I write this from the Apollo hospital in Dhaka.  Visit number two for our little boy.  We think he must love the nurses!  Last time they thought it was typhoid.  This time – who knows!
The positive from all of this is that I have some time to write.  I am not sure what happens to time but clearly I’ve not written for a while.  I think it’s the fact that we’ve been watching all those TV series we never used to watch – Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, and a bit of Downton.  Ah, Downton.  So very relaxing in comparison with the chaos of the streets of Dhaka.
Anyway, now is time for some updates as a number of people have been commenting to me on the lack of blogs.  We are now entering the summer in Bangladesh – it is hot.  Very hot.  And very dry.  When you hear of Bangladesh in the UK you hear a few things.  Firstly, it is usually talked about in the context of floods so I would argue that most people think of it as a country of too much water.  However, there are parts of the country where lack of water is the challenge, especially during the dry season.  Groundwater is used for agriculture as well as domestic use.  In  parts of the country, including Dhaka city, the water is being drawn from the water table faster than it is being replaced during the monsoon.  The water table beneath Dhaka is dropping between 2 – 3 metres per year.  In other parts of the country there is saline water coming up into the groundwater.  So people are either drinking saline water with associated health risks (hypertension for example), or drinking water from other sources which are unsafe.

Fishermen on a boat on the Padma

Sunset on the Padma - waiting for the ferry
 The other thing I think people would associate with Bangladesh is the ready made garments industry.  Last year, on 24th April, more than 1000 people lost their lives after the collapse of Rana plaza.  There is much debate in the media as to whether this has changed the attitudes of those in the UK and other countries who purchase clothing made here.  A few links to some interesting articles, including what the UK Government is doing, below:
So, flooding and garments.  Two things we all know about in the UK when we here ‘Bangladesh’.  Bangladesh is incredibly varied though.  I have been able to get out and about quite a bit over the past few months, to the North and near the border with India where they grow a lot of tea (and apparently a little bit of coffee!) and to the south and south west where the cyclones hit but also where the fish and shrimp industry is huge.  I thought I would write a few short posts about these trips to give you a better sense as to what Bangladesh is like once you escape the grasp of Dhaka.