Plans.

Maps of the Tonle Sap and Mekong spread around my room...

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?

Saint Martin's-Part 1

The whole house is sagging. Under the weight of drying fruits, vegetable vines, oars, and bits of trash the palm frond shingles and woven bamboo walls are slowly being pushed back into the sandy soil. The sun is setting into the thick haze hanging over the Bay of Bengal. In the fading evening light I am entertaining a half dozen small children with my camera and answers to their memorized questions of “howareyouiamfine?” and “your country?”

Inside the low doorway of the house two men are talking loudly with an old woman. I understand a handful of the Bangla words I hear and guess that some sort of negotiation is taking place. The yard is full of small papaya and banana trees covered in green fruit.

Abruptly the discussion stops and the two men emerge smiling. They turn to the children who quickly stick their hands out. Into their open palms the men put a fistful of crumbled red notes. The kids demand more and the men add another ten taka—roughly 17 US cents. With cash now in hand a dozen small fists start digging into the sand. The stench of decaying marine life fills the air. From the ground come dozens of beautiful shells. Many are still squirming with maggots. Each shell is inspected before being stuffed into a nylon sack. Several purple sea urchins are retrieved from where they were drying in the top of a papaya tree.

Another few weeks drying in the sunshine on Saint Martin’s Island will make these former mollusks and echinoderms from the island’s coral reef ready for shipment to seaside resorts back on mainland Bangladesh. The shells will be hawked by small children to smiling middle class and foreign tourist on a dirty beach bordered by dozens of newly built high rise hotels.

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.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6...fill 'er up!

It is early afternoon. We look absently from the back windows as the driver swerves around several small three wheeled rickshaws and CNG's (containerized natural gas vehicles). The driver maneuvers us down the commercial streets punctuating each shift in direction, or perhaps internal thought, with a loud beep of the car horn. Soon we pass beneath the shadow of a sprawling multistory blue box. The man with me says it is to be south Asia's newest super mall. And if all the right bribes are paid--permitting the partially illegal structure--it will open in 2013. A monolith to consumption, a totem for the economic future of Dhaka.

Quite suddenly the road turns to dirt and we realize we have passed our turn off. Things are changing in this part of the city so rapidly that directions are somewhat dynamic--with new landmarks being constructed almost daily. We pull ahead a bit further until we find a place to turn around. We arrive at an intersection. The narrow streets of a slum stretch off to the left. Newly built high rises supported by bamboo scaffolding loom over us on the right. An old cow and a handful of brown ducks scratch around in the dusty roadbed ahead of us. We turn around. Some children play on swings made of twine and brown paper bags. We drive past them and turn off down the next lane.

The road is lined with high rises in various stages of construction. Dwarfed by these condos are trees in various stages of death and decomposition. Their lower bark has fallen away. They look like skeletons of trees. At the end of the road is a low building with a tin roof and some words spray painted on the outside wall. Inside are 30 smiling children.

A group of second graders show me how well they can count in English--they are well on their way to 100 when their teacher stops them, whispering to me that they will continue onto 1000 if she doesn't stop them now. I admit to them that I can only count to 12 in Bangla. This starts a dozen voices yelling out numbers. With almost no time to repeat what they are saying I quickly mispronounce 34, 35, 36...soon we are all reduced to uncontrolled laughter.

It is now late in the day and the students must go home. They live in slums all over the city, some live on the streets. The school, funded through donations, is where they go for lessons in English and science, a square meal, and a clean place to bath. It is a place that hopes to help the students out of the slums.

The drive back across the city is uneventful. We pass the remains of rivers and ponds--now filled to the top with rubble and soil--the newest high rise building pads. Unfortunately the school also sits on prime real estate--and it will not be long before the landlord forces the teachers and students away. But the new super mall needs nearby customers. Not to mention that broken walls make great fill.

Dhaka.

Red light, go, honk horn.
Green light, go, honk horn.
Rickshaw, go, honk horn.
Off loading bus, go, honk horn.
Traffic officer, go, honk horn.
Old person, go, honk horn twice.
Kid selling popcorn, honk horn, stop. But only because you have too. These entrepreneurs seem to pop up whenever a traffic jam is imminent.

Italy in Review.

The early morning sun rises over the low mountains of the Supramonte region of Sardinia. Its warmth and light wake a sleeping dog, who is curled in front of an old stone farm house. The dog yawns and stretches before heading into the Mediterranean shrub forest in search of goats and cows to harass or lone hikers in need of company. The snow in the mountains is melting and where the underground rivers break to the surface, through eroding limestone, the water is running high.

On the mainland—in Roma—gypsies, street musicians and beggars move out of the alleys and into the main streets hoping some holiday cheer will be shared with them by passing tourists, nuns, students, and Romans.

In the ancient city of Matera an old woman, barely tall enough to lean on the short stone wall in front of her, looks out over the stone city and deep canyon where her ancestors lived and worked ceaselessly for the church and nobles who once ruled her city.

In Genova the junkies and prostitutes are awaking to another damp day in the streets after a long night of false pleasure and false passion.

High above Lago Maggiore in the southern Italian Alps, hikers are tightening their thick boots and preparing themselves for another day above treeline.

It is exam season and students all across the country are studying—hoping for high marks.

In the south migrant laborers, fresh from the shores of northern Africa are busy picking oranges and clementines. Slowly wearing down under the low wages and abuse of their mafia supervisors.

In countless small towns sheets of freshmade pasta and warm loaves of bread are laid out in store fronts below massive wheels of cheese and dried meats.

In Venice public workers assemble elevated boardwalks over the streets so tourists can photograph Saint Marcs square with dry feet. Gondolas rock gently in the rising tide waters and boats deliver goods to the hotels and restaurants of the city. In back alleys white egrets stalk small fish. Not far away huge cranes lower rubble and concrete into place as construction continues on the colossal flood protection project, MOSES, that many hope will stop the rising Adriatic.

An old farmer in the Po valley checks on his cows and the day's milk prices to see if either will help pay the month's mortgage. On the edge of his property a small stream runs dark brown with runoff from the nights heavy rain and snow melt. Downstream the river roars dark and earthy into the Po delta. Mixed with the dark mud of agricultural run off are countless pieces of litter and waste—destined for the beaches of the northern Adriatic.

A train worker in Milano blows her whistle as travelers push past one an other for a seat on their train ride home to see their families for the last festival of the season.

In Chioggia street vendors open their stands. They arrange their vegetables and countless species of fresh seafood. Large fishing boats arrive home from long nights working along the Adriatic coast. Store owners enter their banks, caffees, bars, supermarkets, shoe stores, and workshops. They hope the continuous flooding from the week before has not ruined their business—that their pumps kept pace with each night's rising waters.

In a piazza in the small town of Galaezza local men are building a gigantic effigy of the old year—la befana—an old woman, whose five meters will be burned in a joyful, though to me somewhat morbid, ceremony that night. She is a symbol of the old year and her sacrifice represents a new start. Across the street in a cold room with fading frescoes I awake and start a pot of coffee. It is so cold that I imagine the snow falling outside the window is in the room with me. I open an email and learn that one of my greatest friends and mentor has died.

George once told me that “life can be bore, a mess even, but it is a great adventure, ever ceaseless change, and constant challenge! And it can be fun.”

George's death, and more importantly his life, inspired in me the desire to understand change. How our environment and cultures change. The last four months in Italy have provided me with countless lessons in how the world can and does change.

For much of time I lived in Italy my home was in a city hostel on the island of Chioggia. Chioggia is city obsessed with fish. Everything about the city is related to the island's fishing past and present. The streets are lined with shops selling fishing boots, nets, and nautical gear. Its bars and caffees face the water ready for the pescatore(fisherman) in need of a hot or strong drink. The canals are lined with boats. Small ones that work the lagoon's shellfish aquaculture farms and big ones that pillage the waters of Croatia for species long depleted from Italian sea. Behind dusty widows are boat mechanics and net makers. The main canal is bordered with dry docks and fish processing plants and also the daily fish market, where on many occasions I counted nearly 30 species of fresh seafood, much of it still trying to wiggle itself towards the canal and a new chance at freedom.

Chioggia was a place were I developed a rhythm. I awoke to follow the tides, to see how the city lived with frequent flooding, the endless boat traffic, and scent of the lagoon. I lived with university students, who provided me an environment where all I heard for weeks on end was Italian—a language I now use in conversation and hear in my dreams. Two of the hardest things for me to deal with in Chioggia, and the reasons I finally left to explore other parts of Italy, were racism, and the disconnect with the fishery resources they all depended on for work. I saw immigrants denied access to food, spit on, and chased off the streets. After high water, when the streets were smeared with filth from the canals, I watched shop owners and fishermen use brooms and bleach to clean the pavement—sweeping a chemical slurry into the lagoon, only to head to the beach at low tide to collect mussels for dinner. I worry that for Chioggia change will come quickly when the already abused fisheries of the lagoon and Adriatic sea crash and the 1000 year history of fishing, the dialect, and the culture of the city are reduced to graying photos on postcards.

As much as I love the sea and water I was often drawn to the mountains—especially when I needed a little snow and solitude. And it was thus that one weekend I found myself coming down a long snowy trail above Lake Maggiore in northern Italy, wearing mountaineer boots that were a half size to small. In need of a break my friend and I decided to explore a deep cave, famous for its permanently frozen depths. Depths hiding a glacier—a glacier with ice dating backing nearly 2000 years. After climbing 15 meters down into the cave my boots meet a muddy bottom, at the base of some dirty snow. The last ten years of warmth in the Alps had erased the icy record of the previous 2000 years.

A few weeks ago I traveled to Sardinia. I backpacked through a region known to the Romans as Barbaria—a place with people so fierce and independent that the Roman military left them alone. The region is dotted with the crumbling ruins of castles dating back to the birth of Christ. Each night I stayed in small huts made of stone and juniper. For nearly 4,000 years structures identical to these were used by local shepherds to look over their herds and hunt for wild boar. Less than 50 years ago the last old man left his hut for the city and now a national park protects the artifacts of their ancient lifestyle. A lifestyle replaced by roads, trucks, and factories.

In 36 hours I fly to Dhaka, Bangladesh. Ceaseless change.

Brett