The change of seasons 20/03/09

Last night, I woke around midnight and lay awake, trying to figure out what it was that had woken me.

After a few sleep-dazed moments, it hit me: instead of the usual nightsounds (trains passing, people talking, babies crying, termites chewing), I could hear nothing but the roaring of the wind. The wind! Usually (well, up until now, anyway), there isn’t any wind here. There might be the occasional pleasant breeze, but nothing that would qualify as actual wind. And this wasn’t any old wind – it was a full-on howling gale.

I jumped up and ran to my balcony, hoping it was raining (I’m longing to feel rain on my skin at the moment, it’s so dry and dusty here). Instead of rain, however, there was just the furious, relentless wind. I watched for a few seconds as the palm trees outside my bedroom, illuminated by the street lights, were lashed like something in TV news coverage of a faraway cyclone. Then all of a sudden, the power went off across town. Where moments before there had been palm trees flailing desperately against their windy assailants, there was suddenly nothing. Just the roaring wind and the dust it was picking up and wantonly redistributing.

For some reason, the sudden darkness and the relentless wind frightened me. I slammed the door to my balcony and dived back under my mosquito net, to bed. I lay there, breathing hard, watching the suggestion of lightning play across my ceiling and counting the seconds to the thunder. Eight seconds. Seven seconds. Outside, the corrugated iron of my neighbours roofs began to bang and whine. Eventually, lulled by the storm, I drifted off to sleep.

*

The next morning, everything looked pretty much the same, except for the fine layer of debris that had gathered beneath each of the windows I’d forgotten to close. Bits of banana leaf, twigs, scraps of plastic, heaps of dust. On the way to work, I looked out for signs of damage. A couple of trees now leaning at drunker angles than they had been the previous day. Piles of dead leaves already being swept up by women and children to use in cooking fires.

According to my colleagues, the storm was a mini-cyclone, and it damaged a lot of the flimsy corrugated iron houses of the poor. Apparently, such storms will be fairly common for the next two or three months – one characteristic of the new season. Bangladesh has 6 seasons, I believe, although I’m yet to get my head around the different ones. And the current season, the new one, is characterised by dryness, heat and sudden storms. Fun times ahead.

The Change of Seasons has taken on almost mythical significance for me here. For the last month or so, every slight headache or tiredness, every discomfort and major illness, has been blamed upon The Change of Seasons. While I can’t say I necessarily agree with this identification of cause and effect, it’s certainly true that the seasons are on the turn, and it’s all change here.

The mango orchards are in bloom, filling the air with an almost sickly sweetness. In just a few months, green mangoes will be ready for making pickle, and a few weeks after that the sweet mangoes will be ready for making daiquiris (I have great plans I tell you, great plans). Everywhere, the bright energy of new growth is juxtaposing itself against the dust-laden greyness of old. The paddy is every day more strident and irrepressibly green. In the heat of the afternoons, the cicadas are beginning to whir, and during the load-shedding blackouts that are growing more and more frequent, the cockroaches are multiplying like nobody’s business.

And then there is the heat. It’s gathering, day by day, like an old disused machine cranking up to speed. Each day is a squint brighter and a gasp more humid. The weather is hunkering down upon us, and I’m beginning to worry because there is going to be no escape.

The hills, the hills! 7th-9th March

Since I first learned that I’d be going to Bangladesh to work with indigenous peoples, I’ve had the fabulousness of the Chittagong Hill Tracts rubbed in my face. Everyone I got in touch with pre-departure either raved about just how much they loved it there, but how different it is to the rest of the country, or complained about the difficulties of living in the plains and how much better life is in the hill tracts. At the time, this made me a) panic that the most of the country, and more particularly, my would-be home, was some nightmarish place that would have to be endured rather than enjoyed, and b) green with envy at the tales of drinking and merriment that (apparently) is all that ever goes on there. Since arriving, I’ve realised that this is not really a fair picture: as I hope I’ve made clear, there’s lots to love about Bangladesh, and I’ve grown very fond of my little corner of the country. However, the tales of jungle juice and bamboo chicken that emanate from the hills via my esteemed colleagues who work there have remained highly intriguing, so you can imagine my delight when we managed to bully our programme manager into holding one of VSO’s jargon-filled workshops in Khagrachari (one of the three main towns in the CHT, and by all accounts heaven on earth… )

Now, a word about the CHT for the uninitiated: the hill tracts are a (surprise, surprise) hilly and forested (well, jungled really, but I’m not sure if this is an actual word) area in the south east of Bangladesh. Fairly cut off from the rest of the country save for a narrow strip of land around Chittagong city, the area borders Burma and some of the lesser-known states of India (such as tripura, which is also, interestingly, the name of one of the indigenous groups there) and is home to many of Bangladesh’s indigenous peoples. These indigenous communities are the most well-known both nationally and internationally, perhaps because they live in more discrete communities than the indigenous peoples of the plains and are more successfully maintaining their distinct cultures, or perhaps because of the long and bloody struggle for regional autonomy they fought against various governments of East Bengal, East Pakistan and Bangladesh. Although the fighting was officially brought to an end by a peace accord in 1997, many problems still remain: land disputes are ongoing with Bengali settlers encouraged by successive governments to migrate to the CHT; the army and the police, apparently needed to ‘keep the peace’, continue to harass indigenous people; and it is nigh on impossible to mention the term “indigenous peoples’ rights”, let alone work on behalf of these issues.

So it was with some trepidation that I set off from Dhaka to attend a workshop on the progress of VSOB’s indigenous peoples’ rights programme. After a minor panic about the fact that I didn’t have my passport details with me (as a foreigner visiting Khagrachari, you are required to have prearranged permission to visit and you must sign in and out as you go), my trip to the hills began.

That was the most arresting thing, at first: seeing a HILL. It’s a funny thing, but I have become accustomed to seeing a horizon as flat as a pancake, and to suddenly see a hill, however small and insignificant, was very disorientating. The hills in the hill tracts are very peculiar, too: they are not large, but they are very abrupt. The sides are steep and wooded, and the main road from Feni to Khagrachari (note, the idea of a ‘main’ road should not be taken too literally here) ribbons through them at what feels a frightening angle after so many months of bombing down perfectly flat, straight roads. It’s easy to see why competition for land is a problem here – flat land, suitable for rice cultivation, is a rarity, and paddy is tucked into the tiniest pockets of flat land.

The second, more insidious thing you notice (if you are an observant type, like me) is the number of army observation posts. As an esteemed friend of mine remarked, everywhere you go as a bideshi in the hill tracts, there really is someone watching you there. Again, with all the land taken up by army barracks and camps, you are reminded why there is competition for land. What’s more, as a force that is meant to be there to keep the peace, it is interesting to note who is holding the huge, old-fashioned rifles.

I was only in Khagrachari for one very busy day and two equally busy nights, so I’ll reserve further comments for my next visit (in April, for Bangla new year – a week of celebrating that requires some stamina, apparently). But I’ll give you my two highlights of the visit:

1. Alotilla: this is a scenic spot just outside Khagrachari town (although, annoyingly, it’s outside enough to require bideshis to check in and out at the check point and be back in town by 6pm). Alotilla literally means ‘light hill’: it’s a tunnel that goes upwards through the hillside, so that when you approach it from the bottom you really are moving towards the light. It was brilliant fun – I’m a big fan of the outdoors, so clambering up rocks and wading through a stream in the dark with only a length of bamboo filled with kerosene to light the way was just my cup of tea.

2. The rice wine: I’ll be honest. This is what the hill tracts are most famous for among volunteers. Obviously there are other reasons the CHT are brilliant, but when it comes down to it, bangla pani is what I was most looking forward to. In a country in which alcohol is officially unavailable, drinking openly in a restaurant is pretty damn exciting. Now, rice wine isn’t the most drinkable of alcoholic beverages. It has a pretty noxious whiff and I really can’t stomach it without a mixer (though I’m told that it’s the chemicals in the sprite that are responsible for the hangover, rather than any properties intrinsic to this raw form of alcohol…). But it’s the social act of having a few drinks with friends that I’ve missed since leaving home, and which I thoroughly enjoyed whilst in Khagrachari. I even carried a few litres back with me to share my colleagues here (well, those who don’t consider taking the infidel juice as a sin, anyway).

The Mutiny (25th-26th Feb)

Some of you no doubt caught the BBC’s rather sensationalist coverage of the mutiny of the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) which began on Wednesday. Given that I was in Dhaka when this occurred, just down the road from the BDR headquarters, I sort of hoped that I’d be able to write a riveting, real-time piece about what was going on. However, as it happens, being privy to an unfolding drama is not quite as dramatic as you might think. In reality, there was a lot of confusion and uncertainty about what was going on, a lot of rumours that turned out to be false, and a lot of waiting around with strict instructions not to step outside except in case of emergency. In short, although it was initially quite a surprise to be woken by the crackle of gunfire on Wednesday morning, and quite worrying to be escorted home, 20 metres from the office, on Thursday afternoon, the last two days were actually quite tedious…

I woke up early on Wednesday morning because the power, and thus the fans, went off, and it quickly became too hot to sleep. With the fans off, in my still sleep-befuddled state, I’m pretty sure I heard a distant rattling that, looking back, was probably gunfire. However, I didn’t think anything of it then, just rolled out of bed to take a cold shower.

The first real indication that something was up came midmorning, while I was in the throes of a hair-tearingly boring VSO review. Mamun, my Programme Manager, began to get messages and phone calls from friends and relatives, all with different stories, but all suggesting that something bad was afoot at the BDR cantonment. News filtered in slowly to VSO: there were lots of conflicting stories, and at first I felt nothing more than a mild interest – it seemed like just another episode of distant political wrangling that had no effect on me. But soon there were rumours of officers being shot, civilians being killed, bodies lying in the streets. It gradually dawned on us that this – whatever it was – was going to be serious.

It had never occurred to me before that you could be so close to the epicentre of something like this and still have absolutely no clue what was going on. When I say ‘close’, I’m not exaggerating much: the BDR headquarters are right beside Rifle Square market, the shopping complex where I buy my knock-off DVDs and where my family stayed when they were in Dhaka, all a 10-minute rickshaw ride from the VSO office. Yet no-one seemed to know what was happening. My colleagues were on their phones to contacts in the national newspapers, friends and family in the military, contacts in the government, anyone who might have an insight into what exactly was happening within the walls of the cantonment. But no-one could say with any authority what was going on. All we had were stories, rumours and theories.

(Incidentally, it seems now that the main grievances were about pay and conditions, and the leadership structure of the BDR. BDR officers are drawn from the main army, while the BDR itself is a separate border force that gets paid significantly less than the army, and has pretty much no opportunity for advancement because of the recruitment system. Given the current economic problems and the spiralling price of food in Bangladesh, the BDR’s tiny salaries have become more and more of a pittance, and it’s thought that this more than anything else was the mutineers’ motivation. At the time there were rumours of encouragement by the opposition, but it now seems that this was all hot air. However, the brutality of some of the mutineers’ tactics have left many questions about what they were hoping to achieve – questions that are now being investigated by the government. As mass graves are discovered and bodies pulled from surrounding sewers, these questions are likely to get louder and more insistent.)

Anyway, back to Wednesday afternoon: amidst talk of a curfew being declared by the government after lunch, VSO decided to send us home. Although the curfew never materialised, we all went home anyway and spent an agreeable afternoon playing cards and drinking beer (acquired – in violation of warnings – by Ollie, in the fastest trip on record to the duty free shop, thanks to the lack of traffic on the roads). Clearly, we VSO volunteers know how to make the best of a bad situation…

During the night, I was glued to the online versions of The Daily Star, an English-medium national newspaper; VSO also kept us up-to-date with the latest developments via their emergency number. It seemed, reassuringly, that the Prime Minister’s offer of an amnesty was going to be accepted by the mutineers, and we were given a tentative all-clear around midnight, although this was accompanied by a warning to wait for confirmation in the morning before leaving for work.

As I walked to the office the next morning the streets were quiet, but not so much as to arouse suspicion: it seemed that things were going to be okay.

But unfortunately this wasn’t to be. In a chilling repeat of the day before, another workshop was interrupted midmorning by the VSO staff being called to an emergency meeting. It turned out that the army was not happy with Hasina’s deal, given that more than a hundred officers were still missing, and was preparing to attack the BDR headquarters. Rumours that tanks were rolling down Satmasjid road towards the cantonment (literally a stone’s throw from the VSO flat where I was supposed to be staying with two other volunteers) brought a growing realisation that the situation was different from the previous day. The tension was visible on the faces of my friends and colleagues, and in the fact that we were allowed to use the office phone to call home and reassure our families (although how reassuring it is to be woken at 7am and told that your child is safe from a threat you didn’t know existed is debatable). When VSOB insisted on escorting Megan, Laura and myself from the office to Job’s flat, a distance of roughly twenty metres, I began to wonder if we were actually in real danger.

However, what actually happened was that we spent another afternoon cooped up in the flat, watching Gossip Girl and cooking. VSOB gave us strict orders not to go outside, but by evening I was so sick of being inside that I was half-tempted to head down to Rifle Square to see for myself what the deal was. Despite what was going on just down the road, the night passed uneventfully in Lalmatia.

By morning, things appeared to be back to normal. VSO texted to say that the situation had normalised, Sheikh Hasina’s skilful negotiation and firm handling of the situation had resolved the crisis, and both sides were backing down. Apart from a momentary wobble on Friday night, which did nothing more than derail our plans to go to a party at the British High Commission, life in Dhaka had very much gone back to normal.

Despite my personal experience of tedium at a safe remove from events, the situation in Dhaka this week was obviously very serious. The still-unknown number of dead, and the uncertainty over why and how the mutiny occurred, indicates this clearly. Since its independence in 1971, coups have not been uncommon in Bangladesh: it would have been another blow for the country’s struggling democracy had things this week spiralled completely out of control. Hasina’s government has only been in power for a month, and when reports of the mutiny began to emerge, it seemed like just another in a long list of obstacles for Bangladesh: had the events been badly handled, it’s not difficult to imagine a repeat of previous experiences.

But the mutiny did not blossom into a coup or even a serious challenge to the government’s authority. Because of this, some commentators are calling it a ‘triumph’ for Bangladeshi democracy. I’m not sure I’d go that far: that the situation emerged at all is testament to the shortcomings of the country’s democratic development. However, that the new government managed to prevent the mutiny from mutating into anything more serious is a significant achievement on its part. And for this reason, if it is capable of maintaining political stability in the long term and not allowing problems such as this from triggering a descent into chaos, perhaps the way might be paved for the future triumph of democracy in Bangladesh.