Louise in Bangladesh: Sponge-like

It’s hard to find a way of describing my emotions on experiencing this strange country. I’m soaking it all up like a sponge but words like aargh, oooh, wow, noooo and the like don’t really do it, do they? Anyway……

The four-day field trip with my eight other VSO volunteer colleagues was to Khulna in the rural south-west, the poorest, most isolated area. In geographical terms Bangladesh sits on one of the largest river deltas in the world formed by the confluence of the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers. In total the delta has over 57 rivers emptying into the Bay of Bengal. So the area is very fertile when it’s not underwater. Although this area gets its flooding from the sea the main flooding, by the way, comes not from the sea but from the north of the country when the Himalayas melt and the flooding river water sweeps through the country.

What I find so gob-smacking is that Bangladesh is only the size of England and Wales combined but has over 160 million people. No wonder the place is teeming with people wherever you go. Khulna district is very isolated but actually the distance we travelled was less than 85 miles door to door (only slightly further than London to Birmingham. It took ten hours on a coach. Apparently that was good going. Leaving Dhaka we passed through one of the seven circles of hell - the brick factory area. The photo below doesn't look too horrific but the blurry-ness is due to the pollution the chimneys give off. The men working in the kilns have hellishly hard jobs and are, of course, underpaid and overworked. In today's newspaper there was an article about child trafficing into the brick factories. The police had rescued 23 kids aged under 10 who had been forced to work long long hours loading and unloading the kilns. Not for the first time - or probably the last - I'm saying to myself 'we don't know how lucky we are'.

After an arduous journey including a ferry crossing, which was an experience in itself, we arrived in Khulna district. I’ll attach some photos showing the journey.

The south-west is so beautiful. Very flat, very green. As far as the eye can see, there are copses of tropical trees surrounded by rice paddies edged by raised levees or dykes topped with little footpaths lined with banana trees or pumpkin or tomato plants. The roads are mainly made of dirt and even the 'main' Dhaka to Khulna road only had tarmac for about half the way. The tracks off the main roads are shaded with beautiful trees and often paved with brick cobbles laid herringbone style. Apparently the last government launched an initiative to do this throughout the country but the latest government cancelled it. Shame to stop as it’s obviously made a huge difference. I was there in the best season as half the year this area is flooded to the top of the levees and often ankle deep on the footpaths and in the village hamlets.

The flooding is particularly bad in this area as it is saline and therefore ruins everything. Pumped 'drinking' water comes from Tube Wells which take the water from the low water table but the salinity increases every year and it also contains arsenic. The locals drink this, washing themselves and cleaning clothes and cooking utensils in the pond water. As you can imagine the volunteers are strictly forbidden from drinking, teeth cleaning or washing in the local water. Even the filtered water is bad and those that have ignored the warning not the wash in it have come out in rashes and had significant skin problems.

Enough of the geography lesson. More on the people later.

Main road from Dhaka to Khulna - showing tarmac!