Blogs from Barisal, Bangladesh, Asia

‘Paradise’ is an overused word. Often it embraces ‘tropical’ and refers to some speck of land fringed by idyllic beaches suitable for postcards. But on Earth there is no paradise. It’s strange when a sentence alters your way of seeing. It doesn’t happen often, but occasionally a string of words, perhaps uttered unthinkingly by a random person, can cause a small and initially unimagined shift in the psyche. Sometimes a few words are all it takes to set a life-marker, dividing the past and future, stealthily adding texture to the latter. I’m thinking of something that happened years ago on my first trip to Bangladesh in the winter of 1995-6. I’m thinking of three simple words. It was probably the longest day of the journey, the three month jaunt through northern India and Bangladesh with my ... read more

It is almost impossible in these parts to not take up a number of causes and issues outside of your official realm of obligation. In a beautiful country full of sweet and welcoming people, many of whom live in very challenging circumstances, it is inevitable that we end up investing energy in “side projects.” Ashley, for example, has a relationship with a community in the lake region of Rangamati, where she raised money to sponsor a handful of composting toilets for families who until then had been drinking water from the same shores that they defecated into. Now the families have self-composting EcoSan toilets (see photo), and have not only improved sanitation but been able to build small home gardens using the fertilizer from their compost. For many of us, these commitments allow us to engage ... read more

In a coincidental and tragic follow-up to two of the blogs I published recently, Cyclone AILA hit the southern coast of Bangladesh last week, washing out dozens of villages (like the ones I wrote about two weeks ago) and producing more climate refugees. I was actually due to go to Barisal on a launch boat the night that Aila hit, but the country has a good tracking system and I was told that there was a signal 7 storm coming. Anything beyond a signal 4 and Save the Children staff are not allowed to get on a launch boat; and with signal 7 being just one step below a cyclone, it seemed safe to stay at home. As the storm approached from the Bay of Bengal, the government and the NGOs waited and watched. From what ... read more

Parendi and I typically travel in middle class style to Barisal--we take an overnight launch from Dhaka's main port (Sadar Ghat), sleeping in a hired double cabin that usually comes with AC, sometimes has functional fans, and always has curtains to shut out the peering passengers and curious boys who work on the boat. The older of the boats have suspiciously stained sheets and families of cockroaches, but we've figured out which of the boats are the cleanest and have the least smelly bathrooms. We can't complain. It's safer and more comfortable than traveling on the roads, and its certainly better than traveling the way most do: on the bottom floor of the launch boats, stretched out on blankets, fighting off bugs and the night chill. But this week we upgraded. Instead of our usual overnight ... read more

Bangladeshis have an incredible willingness to perform in front of audiences. Kids here are raised to sing on command (in front of relatives, visitors, strangers), and girls in particular are pretty much expected to have some kind of dance or song up their sleeve in the event that they are called on to entertain. The pressure to perform doesn't disappear with age, and adults will just as easily break into song if necessary. I haven't been to a single meeting that didn't involve at least two or three impromptu performances. And despite the fact that some people's talents are clearly much more worthy than others, nobody seems terribly shy about belting out a folk song or two. Inevitably Parendi and I get asked to sing all the time--in Safe Spaces, during meetings, etc. Until now we've ... read more