World Water Day 2010.

I left Bangladesh two days ago. I left the smell of open sewers, burning trash, beeping car horns, the circus elephants, black water, the taste of turmeric and fish, the questions, the cows, the crowds, the smiles, the traffic, the colors of local fabrics, the jokes of rickshaw drivers, the marriage proposals, the instant friendship of those stuck for 18 hours on a hot bus, the ripening mangoes, and the people working and hoping for a healthy more secure future.

Below are some reflections on water in a place where both its abundance and scarcity are a curse.

Crack.

For nine months after the storm waters receded the embankment held. The mud and tin homes that were swept away by three meters of brackish, muddy water were rebuilt. The road surface dried and cracked in the glaring sunshine. The saline waters left by the floods--though undrinkable--were used to produce exportable goods like crab and shrimp. For the people of Burigoalini Union life slowly became livable again.

One day a local man noticed a small crack in the embankment's dusty surface. His home was rebuilt with foreign aid after Cyclone Alia swept away his village last May. He knew that if the embankment failed he would have to start over again and this time with the next cyclone season quickly approaching.

So he pleaded for help-- for a work crew, for food, for water, for atmospheric carbon reductions, for anything to stop the flood he feared would come. While he frantically looked for help the crack widened and the tide rose. In two days nearly half the embankment had disappeared. Hundreds of men and women endlessly dumped baskets full of sticky gray mud onto the eroding wall. Paid 115 taka (1.70 USD) per day of foreign aid money these laborers tried to reinforce the embankment.

The man who first noticed the crack watched these workers with his hands on his son's shoulders. He hopes their efforts will stabilize the seawall. He fears the next storm.

Not far from the breaching embankment in Burigoalini is Gabura Union. This village has also been rebuilt since Cyclone Alia. But since its embankment failed during the storm all reconstruction has taken place on a narrow strip of dry mud--the remains of the village's failed seawall. The dark dusty interiors of the small bamboo and tarpaulin huts that cover the roadway contrast with the bright colors of drying lungis and saris on the roof tops. The survivors of this drowned village have moved to the only piece of dry land left.

The bricks of once paved side streets disappear below the water. Scattered palm trees and broken walls stand as reminders that the sea has only recently returned to this place. In a half flooded chai stand an old man with a leashed baby monkey watches two boys catch small minnows and shrimp with scraps of plastic and fishing net. Their catch joins a pile drying on a nearby rooftop. Flies swarm everywhere.

Though always a difficult place to find water free of salt, arsenic, human, or animal contamination this part of Bangladesh's southwestern coast is now completely starved of fresh water. In villages accessible by roadways water arrives by truck twice a day. It is pumped from untreated surface ponds further inland. Upon arrival the water is transferred into 5000 liter tanks. Liter by liter it is rationed out to waiting women. From up to one and half kilometers away these women come with rounded aluminum containers pressed to their hips. In the folds of their saris they carry small sheets of paper. Without these receipts they will not be given their family's daily ration of three liters per person.

In one village with an estimated population of 20,000, hundreds of women and children wait in line for a water delivery from 40 km inland. To meet the needs of this community 60,000 liters need to be delivered daily. Most days they receive 20,000, some days half that number. But since they never know when the delivery will arrive women and containers line up for hours in the sweltering midday heat. While they wait young girls play with each other's hair while the women talk in large colorful groups. When the tanks run dry as an old women starts to fill her container she cries out. Others reassure and convince her to wait in the shade for water that may never come.

Nine months ago the country focused its attention on these places. The broken embankments and drowned villages dominated the news. They were labeled "Alia affected" areas. They were rebuilt and stimulated with economic development. Yet today embankments damaged last year and never repaired frequently fail in calm weather.

Each flood tide deposits another thin layer of silt on the remains of brick roads and houses. Mangrove shoots break the smooth outline of the muddy bank as tiny amphibious fish skip along the shore. The water has reclaimed one village and made life nearly unlivable in dozens of others. Will those villages that survived last year’s storm season make it through this one?