Made in Bangladesh

it’s past midnight, and i should really get some sleep, but the rain is pounding on the roof of the house next door, and it seems to be keeping me awake.

i’ve started to fear the bbc weather forcast.  bangladesh is part of the india forcasting and tonight it was covered in the blue smudge of monsoon rains again, and for the sake of everyone here, i’d like the rain to stop.

we’re monitoring right now.  monitoring for outbreak.  watching for a disease spreading and hitting the people who most often get hit by disease.  those most vulnerable.  those most likely to suffer.

and i hate this waiting.

and while i can appreciate certain things about being ready, getting ready…  we are all very busy at the office, gathering information, making plans, building a strategy.  and who doesn’t like to be busy at work.  but the problem with our line of work, is that being busy often means that things have gone to shit for someone.

but it’s a welcome break from the slow insanity of tal camp.  it’s busy there, don’t get me wrong.  but i feel like we are just trying to keep people alive while waiting for someone to listen.  there have been clues aplenty to indicate that the government is going to let the people living there move to a new piece of land… somewhere not squished between a river and a highway.  somewhere where children won’t die every weekend from being hit by cars (don’t ask me about last may).  and we’re waiting but it’s so slow.  but i know that is all we can do. wait, and heal wounds, and try to do our best, and be with the people and try to do what we can.

and the same stupid weather report showed that green blur that indicates another depression forming down where the camp lies.  the cyclone signal is raised again, and we hope another storm disapates and leaves the people unharmed (read: less harmed).

but for the most part, we are waiting for the people there to be given somewhere they can live, grow some food, not sleep in water.

but now, in dhaka, we’re very busy.  but it’s because things could get bad.

i don’t want to think of what the conditions would be that would require us to launch an intervention here.  i don’t like the reality of why we might be busy.  i know how the poor live here, and it’s not an existence that should get any worse than it is.

i’ve looked for the people who used to live on the bank of the lake near the office. the shanty houses disappeared weeks ago.  they left, whether by choice or encouragement, it’s hard to tell.  and it’s likely a good thing since the land they occupied is now under a few feet of water.

when i worked at a rape crisis centre, and we would joke that all we wanted, was to be put out of work.  make us redundant.  make this not necessary.

i would love a world where we are not necessary.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 13th, 2007 at 7:40 pm and is filed under Bangladesh, Financial and Human Resources Coordinator, Healthcare provision. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.