Neighbourhood Watch

At night Lalmatia (my area) is dark. There are no streetlights, a few unlit rickshaws, fewer cars and even fewer people. Lying in bed I can hear occasional voices, maybe a solitary dog bark and, every night, bricks and sand being delivered to the building site across the road. Yes, it wakes me up and yes, it's a pain but my disturbed night is nothing in comparison with the workers who live on all six floors of the site. They have to get up and unload all the bricks by hand, then shovel the sand (or whatever it is) from the lorry onto the ground next to the bricks. Every night.  Ahh, the truck has just arrived, 11.56pm. The brickies will be busy again tomorrow.

Dhaka is a very safe city, not least because of the local night-time neighbourhood-watch system, which involves local people blowing whistles if someone 'suspicious' is seen in their street. So the, almost musical, accompaniment of the night is the sound of the whistles ebbing and flowing as neighbours pass the message along.