Extreme makeover Bangla style

Last week we visited a little island in the western part of Bangladesh. My husband, temporarily His Excellency, kindly allowed me to follow him to a field trip.

Monsoon rains and floods used to wash out the island every year. Having survived a couple of days on the rooftops, people eventually had to leave their homes. As environmentel refugees they lost their few belongings, children missed the school for weeks and months.

After the monsoon season the resilient inhabitants gradually returned to their devastated but beautiful island.

Every time they had to start again from scratch.

They had a few cows, sheep and poultry, they produced jute, fished and lived humbly until the next monsoon season.

This is how it used to be before the island got a total makeover with development aid  and engineering expertise.
A kind of hill was built over the existing island, now the nasty flood waters do not reach the island.

The inhabitants are not any more environmental refugees, children don’t miss education, house animals don’t drown. No more starving on the rooftops.
Life is still very simple and not easy. In case of medical emergency, the nearest hospital is at least six hours away - first 1,5 hours by boat, the rest by car.

The 70 or so families welcomed us heartily, the atmosphere was really warm and the temperature was close to what we have in sauna.

The island has no electricity and thus no air condition. His Excellency became temporarily His Sweatcellency.

Maybe it was a rehearsed scene but the kids seemd to love their school. Everybody's favorite subject was Bangla.

When we left the school, the kids followed us - with their parents.
In the end, we were a colorful, sweaty flock of several hundred people. The whole experience was pretty unreal, but wonderful.

Since everything is different and surprising in Bangladesh, so was also the countryside.

On our way to the boats that took us to the island, we were driving a narrow road in the middle of rice fields when we were met by a man riding an elephant. Cows, sheep, horses and chicken were not so exciting after the big boy.

As a stupid newcomer, I admired beautiful "mosaics" at a river bank until I understood that the small pieces were manure drying in the sun. Well, the artwork kind of smelled.

And if you ever wondered what the national bird here is, the right answer is the horn. Honk honk here and honk honk there, no matter if you are in a city or in a village.