Cyclone Sidr and Bangladesh

On November 15, tropical cyclone Sidr hit Bangladesh with winds of 155 miles per hour and waves reported to be more than 10 feet high on the coast. More than 2,000 people are confirmed dead five days after the storm, and the Red Crescent Society of Bangladesh fears the death toll could reach 10,000. Approximately 3.2 million people have been directly affected by the storm. The storm destroyed houses, crops, fish farms, trees, poultry, and livestock; obstructed roadways and riverine passages; and affected electricity, communications services, and other utilities countrywide. Electrical power in the entire country (!) was out for more than a day after the cyclone hit.

Now the relief efforts begin. A number of countries, including the U.S., have pledged emergency assistance to Bangladesh. Much of America 's relief aid will be delivered by the U.S. military, which has the people, equipment, and budget to do this sort of work. Two U.S. Marine Corps C-130 aircraft with Humanitarian Assistance Survey Teams arrived in Dhaka on Monday; two Wasp-class amphibious assault ships in the region, the USS Essex and USS Kearsarge, will each bring 20 helicopters for relief-and-rescue operations to the southern coast of Bangladesh by the end of this week.

USAID is also doing its part. Patrick's colleagues are working to program $2 million in emergency funds to help provide help to those affected. Even before Sidr made landfall, USAID had boats, water treatment systems and water ambulances for emergency operations ready to go. In cooperation with CARE and Save the Children, USAID helped set up 30,000 emergency survival packages and food stockpiles for immediate distribution after the storm.

But relief after a disaster like this is different from development.

At Category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson scale for hurricanes, Sidr was the worst storm to hit Bangladesh in over 10 years, but its aftermath could have been much, much worse. In 1970 cyclone Bhola, a Category 3 storm, killed 500,000 people. Gorky, almost identical in strength and path to Sidr, killed 140,000 people in 1991. So as strange as it may sound, even if the death toll reaches 10,000, that would be more than ten times lower than the previous big storm. Why the difference?

After the 1991 cyclone, USAID and other international aid groups helped the government of Bangladesh with disaster preparedness programs. The U.S. government helped fund the construction and maintenance of flood and cyclone shelters (they look like concrete warehouses on stilts), wave-protection walls and earthworks to reduce flood damage. That is the long-term work of development. In this case, it looks like 16 years of work may have saved thousands of lives in a matter of hours.

However, Sidr will continue to hurt Bangladesh for months. Thanks to its extremely fertile land and hard-working farmers, Bangladesh just about manages to produce enough food to feed its 150 million people. Sidr destroyed about 95% of the December rice crop in the south. That means that the "monga," or hunger, season of January-March -- traditionally the leanest time of the year for the poor of Bangladesh -- will be that much worse next year. The government of Bangladesh has some stockpiles it can distribute, but only time will tell whether that will be enough.

On a personal note, Jennifer was in Dhaka for the cyclone and the aftermath. There was a lot of wind and rain, and a number of downed trees, but Dhaka was not as badly hit as the southern coast. Thanks to everyone who wrote to make sure that we were OK.

(Disclaimer: The views expressed here are personal and do not reflect the official policy of USAID or the U.S. Government.)

Hallowe'en, Thai Style

Patrick's office had a Hallowe'en party to celebrate (belatedly) the end of the U.S. government fiscal year, as well as to blow off a little steam and give the Thai employees a chance to enjoy some sanuk at work. Here are a few photos:

Patrick and his colleagues.



It wouldn't be a Thai party without food -- part of the huge spread!



Hallowe'en is new to Thailand, so it was great to see the creative thought that went into the costumes.



We played games, one of which featured a "Fear Factor"-style eating contest. Rich, pictured here, was a master at eating grasshoppers.



Some of the Thai staff dressed their American colleagues as traditional Thai ghosts. Molly is dressed as "Mae Naak," one of the most famous and feared ghosts in Thailand. According to legend, a teenaged girl falls in love with a handsome young man. They are married and she becomes pregnant. The young man is conscripted for military service, leaving his pregnant bride behind. Unbeknownst to him, she and their infant son die in childbirth ... but their spirits remain. When the young man returns, the ghost of the woman disguises herself and her son as humans. However, despite her best efforts, she cannot disguise her true nature from her husband, who flees in horror. The villagers resort to all possible spiritual means to exorcise the ghost, but to no avail. The young man remarries, enraging the jealous ghost, who terrorizes her husband and his new family. The young man finally flees to a Buddhist temple, where a gifted young novice imprisons the ghost in a ceramic pot and drops it in the river, freeing her to reenter the cycle of rebirth.

When Molly walked down the street from our office to the Embassy compound (where we had the party), the Thais on the street -- who knew nothing of Hallowe'en -- were stunned, if not horrified. "Mae Naak! Mae Naak!" they murmured, pointing at her and moving away...

The Blue Ball Cap in 45H

We haven't posted anything for a while, but honestly most of the pictures we could show you of things we have seen lately would show the inside of airports! No need to subject you to that, but we do have one interesting story to tell about our fellow travelers these days.

A Bangladeshi newspaper recently reported that so far this year, more than 475,000 Bangladeshis have left for destinations mainly in the Middle East -- Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, even Iraq -- to work. Some may do domestic work, but most of them are bound for construction sites in the desert. Firms looking for cheap labor hire companies who act as press gangs: they find the workers, check their papers, get them visas, etc. Some of these companies may be upstanding and legit, but recent occurrences with Bangladeshi workers have proven that some are not. They may take the (often exorbitant) fee the workers pay for the privilege of being exported, but then don’t show up at the other end of the plane journey to take the workers to their new job; so, workers are left on their own to be dealt with by the destination country officials. This happened to about a hundred workers who recently arrived in Malaysia. They were sent to a detention holding area for weeks until it could all be sorted out ... and then they were sent back home, hundreds of dollars poorer.

They’re easy to pick out in the check-in line. They usually wear matching ball caps or t-shirts with company logos and the name of the country they are going to. Ironically, they certainly can’t read what’s on their shirts, but I suppose the visual identity is enough. They usually have some sort of documentation with them – a work contract or the like – which they keep a death grip on throughout their journey. It’s obvious they’ve been told that no matter what happens, they mustn’t lose their papers. Most of them have never left their village before showing up at the airport in Dhaka to fly thousands of miles. Sometimes airlines seat them all together and board them first, which is preferable. Getting caught up in the middle of 50 of these guys as you board the plane is not something you’d want to do very often.

It's not just Bangladeshis who are leaving their rural villages to take jobs in the Middle East. On a recent flight back from Kathmandu, Patrick shared the plane with about 30 Nepali migrant workers (who were wearing blue caps, by the way). One was Patrick's seatmate in Row 45. During the entire three-and-a-half hour flight to Bangkok on Thai Airways, he watched Patrick carefully. One could almost hear the guy thinking: "Oh, these are headphones ... and they plug in here." "So, this button turns on the light." "Yes, I'll have some peanuts, too!"

Of course, he didn't speak English or Thai, so when dinner was served, he just pointed to Patrick's tray and nodded. Chicken, lamb or veggie? "I'll have what he's having." Water, soda, juice? "I'll have what he's having." Red wine, white wine? "I'll have what he's having." However, he got so involved in his food that he didn't really watch what Patrick did with the condiments. He ate his salad dry, with pepper and salt, and spread the salad dressing on his dinner roll. Then he discovered the butter packet. After studying it for a moment, he picked it up with both hands, held it between his forefingers, and pushed with his thumbs against the bottom, thinking to push whatever was inside out through the foil. Fearing an explosive result (which would have shot a wad of butter across the seats and into the back of the head of the guy sitting in Row 44), Patrick showed him that the foil top could be peeled off. The Nepali thanked him solemnly, picked up his spoon, and had a couple of spoonfuls of butter before he decided that it just wasn't his thing. Coffee, tea? "I'll have what he's having."

"Labor migration" is an interesting phenomenon for the academic types, and an entertaining debate topic for loudmouthed journalists, but for the workers, it’s about trying to make a better life. They’re just looking for jobs and generally have no idea what they’re getting into. For some, things may turn out fine – they’ll work hard, deal with whatever awful living conditions they’re put into and earn more money than they ever could in their home country. But for most, it can be a story of what is essentially modern-day slave labor. Yes, they do get paid, but is it is enough to offset the risks they must take at work, the conditions they live in and the money they had to pay for the job in the first place? When the alternative is no job at all, or begging, or whatever other trouble they can get into at home, it must be worth it. By contrast, a 20-year-old gardener working for foreigners in Bangladesh, who pay him $100 a month and care whether he lives or dies, is doing quite well.