Bangladesh: Bhairab and Hobiganj

Today, the 3rd of November, was the official deadline for the Interim Government of Bangladesh to demonstrate that it is operating in a non-partisan fashion. The deadline was agreed to by the major parties as a device for ending the riots of a week ago. This made us tense when we left at 7 AM for the three-hour drive from Dhaka to Bhairab for our first distribution of bedkits of the day. In any event, in part because Friday is Prayer Day, the city and the countryside were calmer than usual although large numbers of police and troops were present in the city.

Bhairab is a bustling river port even on Prayer Day. All sorts of produce and construction materials were being loaded and off-loaded to and from small and large boats and ships. The cargoes included a large number of our bedkit children and their families who had travelled several hours by river to be with us. When they went home some hours later, they needed one extra craft as their incredibly loaded vessel could not contain the bedkits.

We distributed 600 bedkits which included two sets of clothing to 600 children using the “group method” – ten children being photographed at a time. Our depot for the bedkits was a government warehouse which usually stores grain for use during food shortages. The grain comes from the hinterland of the port which is extraordinarily productive delta farm land. The children who did not come by boat came from this region which appeared all the more rural to us by contrast with the teeming life of our base city, Dhaka.

We then drove for a couple of hours to Hobiganj for our second distribution of the day. The entire route was through rural Bangladesh including an extensive tea plantation area which was the only part of our route that was more than a metre or so above water level. This region must be quite different during the rains.

At Hobiganj we distributed more than a 100 bedkits to local children in the enclosed courtyard of a home belonging to the father-in-law of one of our host Rotarians. This was a great contrast to our morning in the port of Bhairab. The home was part of a region of small, often very small, rural settlements — very self-contained and pleasant. Our hosts family had lived there for generations.

As we started our drive home at dusk, we saw one of “our” children walking proudly through her hamlet wearing a dress from her bedkit.

We returned to Dhaka in the dark, by a devious route, because our host Rotarian thought that it would be safer than the direct route. And so to bed after a great, successful, SCAW day in Bangladesh.

Peter Adams
SCAW Travelling Volunteer