Sweet Water.

We have been moving sluggishly down the Tonle Sap River for two blindingly sunny, scorchingly hot mornings and afternoons. The landscape, historically part of an extensive flooded forest ecosystem, had given way to dry, scrubby, shashed, and burned grassland. This stretched off to the horizon broken by the silhouettes of tall palm trees, water buffalos, and the occasionally spindly farm house.

The flood-plain, though no longer the maze of tangled branches that provided breeding and feeding habitat to fish in one of the world's most productive fresh water fisheries, still supports innumerable trey riel. These small fish are so important to Cambodians that their name is shared with the national currency.

Our dated maps tell us that around the next bend there should be a long canal, a short cut through the flat lowlands. Slowly a huge green mass starts to show on the right bank. In our shadeless, sun-soaked world the promise of large leafy branches is only too welcome. A half an hour later huge branches, large enough to tower as trees themselves, hang over my head and yellow kayak. Next to the twisted roots the canal--long silted in--enters the muddy river. Though the canal holds too little water to offer much of a short cut the trickle of clear liquid in it looks perfect for drinking. After gathering empty bottles and my filter I began to decant the clean water.

A shirtless child watches us from the top of the bank. A small puppy stands by his feet. As the first bottle fills a man comes over the bank--we exchange greetings. I pantomime my intention to drink the clear water at my feet, asking with thumbs up if it is clean. Instantly he shakes his head, pointing to the farm fields above and successfully communicating that in this clear stream, below this scared tree, flows harmful pesticides. After this lucky encounter the muddy water of the big river taste that much sweeter.

Hometown River.

Mine is the Big Timber Creek, it's in the paper today, what's yours?

File cabinet.

Even when all of your belonging fit into one large blue backpack and a camera bag it is still possible to discover long forgotten possessions. Several dozen Italian train tickets for example. How these lurked around for so long escapes me, but they did provide a really fun mental journey back across Italy.

Early mornings, sunsets, and moonlit nights are fabulous here in Phnom Penh. The temperature becomes more bearable, a breeze comes in off the river, and the general mayhem of this rapidly growing city settles down.

Speaking of mayhem it was two weeks ago that I spent 18 hours trapped in a hot bus trying to get back into Dhaka for a few days of quick goodbyes, roof tops, and a two AM flight here.

Which brings me back to Italy. Late night drivers are not always the most honest in Dhaka and when I realized that mine had decided to use my desire to catch my flight as a perfect cover for extortion I began verbalizing only in Italian. No matter how many times he asked for his big tip (baksheesh or bribe) I feigned ignorance. Out of confused frustration he delivered me to the airport.

Enjoy spring rivers!
Brett

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.