Dusty Collar.

It is hot. Between the dust and bright sun the color is washed out of the day. We have just arrived at the end of the road. Before us crumbling brick and clay continues southward, but we stop. There is no reason to try and go further--the decaying road has no destination. At least not any more. Nine months ago this was a place of mud and tin homes, small villages, fishermen, lumberyards, and fish farms. These are gone--erased by the eight foot high flood waters of last year's cyclone season.

Minutes after arriving we are surrounded by locals who offer us lunch. They then comment on how dirty I am from the long ride and offer us a place to wash. My attempts at the local shower--clad in a skirt-like lungi--quickly draw laughter from on lookers. Clean, we search for a way by boat into the Sundarban wilderness. The Sundarbans are the world's largest mangrove jungle. The lush green islands are home to fishermen, tigers, woodcutters, and pirates. The forest's many canals are wild enough to have hidden a population of 6,000 Irrawaddy river dolphins--unknown to the World Wildlife Fund until last year.

Cartcutter, the village we hire a boat from, has experienced problems with salt water damage to aquaculture and groundwater since last year's cyclone. It's roads and homes still show signs of damage.

Patorekali has none of these problems. It no longer exists. A row of hasty assembled tin and tarp houses line the remains of the main street. Pieces of a mosque and the village's school hang over the muddy river banks.

No one living today had ever seen a storm like last year's. Even the man I am staying with who had survived a tiger attack--by killing it with his bare hands--had never faced anything like last year's cyclone. Here in the low-lying delta of the Meghna River the rising waters of the Bay of Bengal are facing off with with the southern end of Bangladesh. One storm at a time Bangladesh is losing ground.

Now it is the dry season and though the damage is still fresh life goes on. Hundreds of workers rebuild roads and embankments--50 meters further back from the water. Fisherman check their nets. Bicycles haul wagon loads of lumber north towards the highway. Newly painted boats dry in the hot sun.

My host treats us to shrimp, fish, and crabs from what remain of his aquaculture ponds. These luxury foods are usually reserved for export to foreign markets in the USA and Europe. He arranges tours on the edge of the Sundarbans, a visit to a forestry outpost, and photo opportunities with monkeys. As his guest I am show around the village--introduced to hundreds of curious men and children. They laugh and smile when I try to speak to them in the pieces I know of their language.

Humanity, curiosity, hospitality, hardship, endurance--this is Bangladesh.

Too soon after arriving we begin the long, hot, dusty trip back to the highway.