Made in Bangladesh

finally, a proper cyclone entry.  only 3 months late!  way to go me!  to make up for the tardiness, i’m gonna make this super long.  so i’ll understand if you only want to look at pictures. i can be very verbose.

so this is going to be about the trip to galachipa, a town in southern bangladesh located in a region heavily populated with chors – which are small island like patches of land that suffer quite a bit of flooding at the best of times, and were quite badly hit by the cyclone.around the chors, we distributed thousands of NFI kits. NFI stands for non-food items, and as the name suggests, the items can refer to a number of goods that aren’t food.  one common nfi is a blanket.  cyclone sidr hit right before bangladesh gets cold.  and our mothers have all been correct telling us to button up when it’s cold.  blankets are important for keeping warm in the winter, otherwise it’s easier to get ill.

what you can see in the photo below is 3000 blankets.  what you can’t see in this photo are the other goods that went into the household kids – candles and matches, cooking pots, soap and some other necessities that were meant to keep a family warm, clean and able to cook food – all important ways to stay healthy.

next up is a photo of the supply logistician that got flown in for the emergency.  it’s funny, because when you work for msf you work in these teams and become so close to people and you wonder if you’ll see them again.  and so when they show up in your next mission, it’s so awesome!  case in point, lori and i worked together in sudan, and we got to do it again in bangladesh.  huzzah!  here we have just finished a nutritious dinner of fried bread stuffed with lentils.  mmmmm.  we’re doing our evening decompression on the patio before it’s off to bed.

as november flew into december, the capital office was in full swing trying to support three projects instead of our usual one, and working like mad (see earlier reference to dinner being fried food).  but i realised one day that i was needed in galachipa to give the administrator a hand, and make sure our finances/admin etc was all in order.  so away i went to the southern coast, where there are even more boats then i’m used to seeing.

i was travelling in a pickup, but the most common method of travel down there appears to be motorcycles – which after a cyclone is handy because they can manuever around trees and other debris on the road.  i would feel beter if the women riding behind the driver would wear helmets though.  sigh. (hmm.. you can barely see her in this photo)

this type of thing is why i want them to wear helmets.  and in the cars, seatbelts.  and maybe knee and elbow pads and a neck brace or something.  perhaps people should only travel coccooned in duvets and bubblewrap.  yes.  that’s it.

ah yes, the ferries.  seriously good stuff here.  anyone know the needles ferry?  it’s like that but somehow more trucks.  somewhat claustaphobic inside the car – but outside was all exhaust.  best place to be was the front of the ferry, standing by the ledge.

or perhaps running around the ferry taking pictures of people’s bicycles as i seem to have preferred.

and here we have a gaggle of children that hung out with me while i waited for one of the ferries (there were many – many ferries, many children).  they ended up taking the ferry ride with me too.  they seemed totally entertained by me, and they looooooved getting their pictures taken.  love the age of digital cameras.  nothing creates a fit of laughter in the kids like seeing themselves on the screen.

on the big ferry i was invited to the steering place (anyone nautical enough to tell me what the room is called with the big wheel thing?)  i didn’t understand why i was invited, and kind of ignored the invitation, until i realised that everywhere i went on this ferry, there were men folk wanting to take my picture.  um.  it was strange like, really unnerving and specific to this ferry (hadn’t happened on the previous 18 or so…) eventually, i decided to cancel the media scrum and stop clogging up the balconies and i went to sit on one of the seats in the steering room place.  there was a guy in there taking my picture too, but i decided one guy was easier than 30.  and now i got to take some pictures. i like this one.

finally, we got as close to galachipa as we would with the pickup.  the final leg of the journey would be by boat.  teensy little boats with loooots of people and only one silly foreigner with a heavy pack on her shoulders.  oh yes, and the foreigner was wearing sandles.  slippery sandles.  her more practical shoes were in the bottom of the backpack.

very happy to report i did not fall in,and only looked slightly ridiculous going from pier to boat.

yup, i’m standing at the front of the boat.  can you see galachipa on the other side?

now i’m in galachipa.  and i’m not going to show a picture of the office, because apparently i didn’t feel it was very exciting (as i didn’t take any pictures).  the admin there was doing a good job getting it set up, and we spent 2 days solid in that room getting all the systems up to spec and worked out.  we worked from dawn until a few hours before the next dawn, surviving off instant coffee and sweet biscuits.  when i did take the occasional walk around the hotel i could appreciate the view.  it was a motel-style set up, and we had a ‘kitchen’ all worked out on the roof – complete with tables and chairs to eat.  the view was pretty awesome, as you can see below

but yes, exciting two days of reciepts, spreadsheets, office supplies and the occasional strech of legs.  the day i left i awoke at dawn again to catch the boat back across the river.

and it was a beautiful morning.

so there you go, a nice little photo blog about my trip to the south.  and now, the obligatory photo for mom… sorry it’s such a giant picture of my forehead.  spots and all.

ciao,
j

i love music.  i love shows.  i miss vancouver so much sometimes for the simple act of putting on some cute boots, a fun little dress, and walking on down to the railway to listen to whoever is on stage, dancing until they close the bar, and they kindly ask us (again) to leave.

i miss having a friend call me up and dragging me out to see someone they know i’ll love.  i miss the canadian music scene full of girls on guitars and funny boys on keyboards.

but the music keeps on in my head.

the other night while standing in the darkened driveway of our office, surrounded by buckets, blankets and cooking pots (not to mention the soap, candles, and piles of other goods) i found the funniest songs started playing in my head.  as the assembly line assembled the hygiene and cooking kits, as i bent down to place the candles in the bucket, then the matches, each time lifting my head to see the imposing number of goods still stacked up against the walls, shed, trees, parked cars; tracy chapman’s ‘mountains o’ things’ started to swirl through my head.  and it was a good thing – i mean, i knew these mountains of things had a point, and would mean a lot to people who had lost their basic supplies in the cyclone.  these mountains o’ things meant survival, not accumulation of wealth… so again, a good thing.  but on the other hand, the mountain’s part meant we still had hours of work to get everything sorted into individual 20 litre jute bags…

as the evening progressed, the piles slowly got smaller, but it started to dawn just how much there was.  and my second wind came accompanied by dire straights… ‘we got to move these, refridgerators’ (or in our case ‘we got to move these, fleecy blankets).  and that kept me going for another few hours.

the trucks from our supplier had shown up at 10PM. (6 hours late).  we finished loading the last truck with completed kits at 3:30AM. (surprisingly, only 4.5 hours late… we were speedy little line workers).  the thanks goes to the team of workers hired from the neighbourhood and the staff members who stayed until it was done.  our cook is a rock star, and refused to leave until the last kit was finished.

and so those are the songs i thought of while working.  i found it amusing, so thought one of your might too.  in related news this morning i passed a small girl with a huge bundle of firewood balanced on her head, and she gave me the toothiest grin.  and i thought about the mp3 player i had with me, that cost more than she will earn in a year (and there is no doubt in my mind she is a wage earner for her family, and could quite possibly be the sole wager earner for younger siblings if they are without parents…)

and i thought of how much cash i’ll drop the first night i’m back in vancouver on my holidays in 3 weeks.  similar thoughts to those i have every time a woman knocks on my car window asking ‘madam, baksheesh’.

i don’t know if i could work here if not in the capacity as an aid worker.  it’s simply too much.  at least now i assuage my guilt by telling myself the 12 hour days, being away from my home, somehow these sacrifices are as good as taking the woman into the grocery store and buying bread for her and her family.  and that my contribution helps more people then i could afford to help one by one on the street.

oh, rambly thoughts.

for now, i end with a small thanks, to the hometown musician who sent me a copy of one of my favorite songs of hers that has been stuck in my head for two weeks.  and a thanks to my friends and my family who leave me small notes in emails and phone calls.  and a thanks to the ridiculously overpriced mp3 player that means i can play any leonard cohen cover i get stuck in my head.  for now, i try to be satisfied with what i can do.

i remember last monday sitting outside with my coffee at 8AM, waiting for the expats to arrive from the hotel.  4 people had been flown overnight, arriving between 2 and 4 am, and they were due in the office by 9.

we’d been busy with preparations for the explos all weekend, but busyness takes on a whole new meaning when there are new people.  i knew as i sat there enjoying the early quietness, that it wasn’t just 4 expats, but also 4 doctors, 2 translators, and our rehired drivers (plus rental pickup drivers_ who i would also see that day.  i knew it would be bonkers as people needed briefings, paperwork, information, and a role in the planning taking place.

so i took a moment, and sipped my coffee and watched some cute birdies play in the pre-dhaka-haze sunshine.  it looks like spring here in the morning.  the concrete has that old deniem blue/grey sheen.

i was wise to enjoy the few minutes of silence, since it has not been replicated since.

i’m not sure how to sum up the past week, except to say it involved 1 night of packing relief kits until 3:30 am, receiving, briefing and sending off 11 expats, hiring 25 staff, purchasing thousands of items for the earlier mentioned relief kits, tonnes of stress and late late nights, and at least three instances of breaking out in hysterical laughter that ended in tears – mostly due to tiredness i think.  as my dear medco put it, you have to laugh so you don’t cry – but sometimes you do both.

the hundreds of dead is now well over a thousand, and there are worries over areas that haven’t been reached yet.  in the wee hours of monday morning (tomorrow for me now) we will have 4 expats arrive, and today we prepared our landcruisers, emergency kits, and logistics kits (food, flashlights, lifejackets etc etc).  i rehired translators and medics from the emergency program we ran after the floods, and we called back the drivers from the project as well.  our logco is getting himself back here from teknaf and tomorrow morning we have a coordinating meeting with some other agencies we will work with – by dawn tuesday the first land cruiser should pull out the gate.

i’m writing this now because i was so bad during the emergency project in august and just stopped writing. i figured better to write a boring little rather than nothing at all.

so today was quite busy. all this plus sending the nutritionist off to teknaf.  the poor woman arrived at 8am this morning, and we had her on another plane by 4.  we are doing a nutritional survey in tal, to recalibrate our numbers and get a better idea of what the needs are.

in terms of this post cyclone assessment, we will have 3 teams on the ground and we are truely in the assessment phase right now.  msf has very specific intervention criterias when it comes to natural disasters.  we only intervene if the local capacity is overwhelmed, or specific groups are not getting assistance, or if our beneficiaries are affected (and these folks are usually marginalised anyway, so it makes sense that we are responding).  in many countries the emergency response is so limited, or spotty, that it can be crucial that we step in.  in other cases, the disaster is just so bad that the regular programs can’t cope.  we ran the emergency diarrhea treatment centre this summer for that reason – the people who usually can deal with the large increase in diarrhea cases, the icddr,b, was dealing with increasing numbers that indicated their resources would soon be overwhelmed.

in this case the number of players on the ground is quite large, and we aren’t sure if we will find medical needs, or more livilihood issues (which are quite serious nonetheless, many areas have lost all their buildings, food stocks, crops, etc).  are people looking at only short term displacement, or will there be longer periods of crowded and unsuitable conditions (something that can lead to definite health problems).  so i guess we just have to wait and see what we find yes?

now i go to sleep. perhaps more soon.

hello everyone,

well, the cyclone has passed and our guys in teknaf are all doing alright.
the storm didn’t hit them overly hard, just bad winds and some rain.  tal
camp managed to get through with just some damaged latrines and more mud
than usual.  the women and children have been returned from the school they
stayed in overnight, and the team feels pretty good about how it went.
indeed the cyclone hit on the western coast, whereas teknaf is the eastern
end of the coast.  it was freaky to look at sat pictures of the storm
though, since it was literally engulfing the entire bay of bengal, and in
fact, was larger than the country itself.

dhaka is good.  we had a night of howling winds and lots of rain and things
making noise as they blew around outside.  a quick survey of the streets
shows downed branches and some debris, and we’ve been without power since
early early in the morning.

the area that got hit has an official death toll of 242 right now from AP.
government and responding agencies are concerned the number will rise as
they gain access to areas who have lost communication during the storm.
(but i feel a perverted sense of relief that they are speaking of hundreds,
not hundreds of thousands.  and i’m trying to find a way to write this down
that makes it clear that i still consider the loss of life tragic, but i
was so worried it would be so many more people.  can that make sense?)

the lower numbers could be due to the fact that according to news releases,
they managed to evacute hundreds of thousands of people from the coastal
areas.  there is an entire early warning system and volunteers who go
around with whistles and megaphones and get people to leave.  once again, i have
been impressed at how strong this country is in emergency preparedness.

i talked to my mom earlier today when the only reports were of the missing
fisherman who didn’t return before the storm.  she asked why they wouldn’t
have, and the only answer i could think of was desperation, to not lose
income, or their boat, or their nets.  a lot of these guys are incredibly
poor, and i was told that people will risk their lives to save their nets
because they fear if they don’t, they’ll only starve later.  and that
thought depresses me beyond belief.

but my depression really has no place here.  i’m very lucky.  i’m in my
home, and the power just came back on, and i’ve got clean water and no tree
crashed through my roof and my husband is safe beside me and i’m going to
put on some socks and drink some tea to warm myself up since it 24 degrees
but i honestly feel like my toes are about to freeze off my feet.
perspective.  it’s a funny thing.

this has ruled my brain most of the day.

in teknaf, we’ve closed the clinic early, as well as discarged patients at the hospital who are well enough to leave.  people are being encouraged to move to higher levels and go to the cyclone shelters.  for the people we serve, the good news is the storm
didn’t veer towards them.  but that means  in real terms that the storm will
hit other people, who no more deserve this than our beneficiaries.  it is
really quite wretched to sit her and watch the small dot on the cyclone map
move closer and closer to shore.

for everyone on the coastline, the surge is the main concern (raise of
water – rolling wave type thingee).  the wind expected is incredible, and
now even the team in teknaf has started to point out that the storm is
expected to move inland to dhaka by tomorrow morning.  i can hear the wind
outside pick up right now, and it’s not even 5PM.

so yes, for us in dhaka, some rain and wind, and the cold himalayan air
brings us down to what feels like a freezing 20 degrees.  for teknaf, no
direct hit of the cyclone, but an unknown surge impact… which if you’ve
seen the photos of tal after the minor cyclone in may, you can understand
our main concern.

but for the people on the eastern side of the coast, bordering india, the
storm heading their way is terrifying to me.