CYCLONE OF BANGLADESH: Munshiganj is still drying out. Maztoba ali and his neighbors are struggling to wring the salt water out of their psyches, rebuild their lives, and avoid being eaten by the tigers that prowl the village at night, driven from the adjacent Sundarbans mangrove forest in such of easy prey. Attacks have risen as population and environmental pressure have increased. Dozens of residents around Munshiganj have perished or been wounded in recent years tow died the week I was there and some of the attacks occurred in broad daylight.
It's bad here, but where else can we go? people says, surveying the four foot high mud platform where he's planning to rebuild his house with an interest free loan from an NGO. This time he's using wood, which floats, instead of mud. The paddy fields around his house are full of water, much of it brackish, and most local farmers have begun raising shrimps or crabs in the brine. Deep wells in the village have gone salty too, they says, forcing people to collect rain-water and apply to NGOs for a water ration, which is delivered by truck to a tank in the village and carried home in aluminum jugs, usually balanced on the heads of young women. You should take a picture of this place and show it to people driving big cars in your country, says Moztoba ali neighbor Linkon Kundu, a short, bearded man who run a local NGO. Tell them it's a preview of what South Florida will look like in 40 years".
As the people of Munshiganj can attest, there's no arguing with the sea, which is coming for his land sooner or later, and yet it's hard to imagine millions of Bangladeshis packing up and feeling en masse to India, no matter how bad things become. They will likely adapt until the bitter end, and then, when things become impossible, adapt a little more. It's matter of national mentality a fierce instinct for survival combined with a willingness to put up with conditions the rest of us might not.
It's bad here, but where else can we go? people says, surveying the four foot high mud platform where he's planning to rebuild his house with an interest free loan from an NGO. This time he's using wood, which floats, instead of mud. The paddy fields around his house are full of water, much of it brackish, and most local farmers have begun raising shrimps or crabs in the brine. Deep wells in the village have gone salty too, they says, forcing people to collect rain-water and apply to NGOs for a water ration, which is delivered by truck to a tank in the village and carried home in aluminum jugs, usually balanced on the heads of young women. You should take a picture of this place and show it to people driving big cars in your country, says Moztoba ali neighbor Linkon Kundu, a short, bearded man who run a local NGO. Tell them it's a preview of what South Florida will look like in 40 years".
As the people of Munshiganj can attest, there's no arguing with the sea, which is coming for his land sooner or later, and yet it's hard to imagine millions of Bangladeshis packing up and feeling en masse to India, no matter how bad things become. They will likely adapt until the bitter end, and then, when things become impossible, adapt a little more. It's matter of national mentality a fierce instinct for survival combined with a willingness to put up with conditions the rest of us might not.