Reflections on visiting a disaster zone

I’m normally not very serious on my blog but this time I felt I had to write something a bit more substantial. I’m back in Bangladesh and this is what I experienced.

As I make my way back by vehicle from the cyclone affected area I start to reflect on what ive seen, heard and experienced over the past few days. My visit coincides with the 3-month anniversary of cyclone Sidr destructive sweep up the bay of Bengal and across numerous villages in southern Bangladesh. My mind wanders on the long journey back as I start to unpack 4 days of visiting communities, discussing issues with people and looking at relief/recovery projects.

Four days ago seems like a long time ago. I remember my first encounter with the results of the cyclone. Several hours into the drive from the capital and the first signs of the cyclone started to appear, trees at an odd angle. At first I think it’s just the type of tree but the further we drive the more I see the same pattern in all the trees. Then the fallen trees appear. At first its one here and there, but the further we head south the more we see flattened. In the following days we were to visit areas that even 3 months on look inaccessible due to fallen trees. And access is not the only danger that the tress posed, as we discovered they clog ponds required for drinking water and flatten homes. We drive past a group of children sitting on a pile of logs and I start to remember the 1987 hurricane that hit southern England. As a 9 year old I remembered having fun climbing over fallen trees on the road outside our house, here I experience how much of a danger they have been homes and lives.

It’s the houses that are the next thing that strikes me. In the worst affected areas we see glimpses of piles of rubble through the trees that were once peoples homes. We also see rebuilding. Families that were given plastic or corrugated iron sheets and have made a temporary shelter from what remains of their home. As we walk along we see numerous homes with their distinctive shine of new corrugated iron decorated with an NGO logo. One village will always stick in my memory. Sandwiched in between the river and the trees the homes stood little chance as the waves rose over the defences and the trees crashed around. Yet the fishermen we speak to seem thankful, some of their friends or family did not return from that fateful nights fishing.

As the visit progresses it’s the silent but just as destructive economic consequences that stick in my mind. I learn about how the disaster has affected a whole economic system. Most people here are day labours, fishermen or farmers. The disaster has robbed fishermen of their boats, farmers of their crops and animals meaning that there is no work for the day labourers. We visit a market that shows how these problems interlink. Whereas before the cyclone shopkeepers would earn 10,000T a week now they struggle to make even a third of that because no one has spare money to buy goods.

I also get a glimpse of the physiological damage a disaster can cause. Fishermen robbed of their productive assets show their frustration and boredom at not being able to work. ‘it is our profession without this we are nothing’ explains a fisherman. Children also speak of their fear of sleeping inside because they feel a cyclone could return and send another tree crashing through their home.

Suddenly a child laughing and playing in the roadside as we speed past snaps me out of my reflection on the destruction cased and causes me to think about the other some of the other things I have experienced. Despite the destruction, loss and grief I also heard stories of hope.

In one community I see the value of preparing for disasters. We meet a women who gave birth in a Cyclone shelter. The effective warning system worked getting her the message of impending danger. She survived the storm in a safe two-story shelter giving the birth to a baby called ‘Sidr’ after the storm with the assistance of two trained community volunteers.

I also see numerous projects started by NGOs to respond to the immediate needs of those affected by the cyclone. Materials given allow people to start rebuilding, food given to allow people to survive the next week weeks, and most importantly opportunity for people to start working and regain their livelihoods.

Back in the car on the journey home, the buildings start to grow and the number of cars increases signalling the arrival of Dhaka and the end of my time back in Bangladesh. I feel drained from the travel and experiences but also renewed from talking with survivors and hearing their solutions to enable their recovery. I also feel proud to be part of an organisation that long after the cameras have disappeared will still be with the communities in their struggle to recover.