Letter from Gillian Rose

Letter from Gillian Rose

Mission Partner

Bollobhpur Hospital

District Meherpur, Bangladesh

January 2003

Bangladesh is in the grips of a severe cold spell ‘… so the newspapers told us each day since the beginning of January. Amusing no doubt to your ears, with your sub-zero temperatures and all the miseries that an English winter can bring. No sub-zero temperatures here in Bangladesh, but for folk who are used to living with temperatures in the nineties, the drop at night to fifty and less, with the thick all prevailing fog that covers the country until midday and sometimes all day, is no less a misery.

The homes here are hot weather homes, with no sort of heating, flimsy walls and tin roofs or thin thatch, and in this area, mud walled houses with one small central room for storage, the family living on the open verandah all around. And then there are the makeshift shacks on open land or along there are the hundreds of thousands of people with no real homes, who live in makeshift shacks on open land or along the railway lines. Only the better off have warm clothes and bedding. The poor shiver miserably in their thin torn sarees, another one (if they are lucky enough to own two) wrapped around their shoulders and bodies as a make-do shawl, all awaiting the appearance of the blessed sun, their only source of warmth. That is why the morning fogs are so hated in Bangladesh… it shuts off the heating system!

Then there is the chronic lack of nourishing food, or even any kind of food, for so many, which makes them so much more vulnerable to the cold. The daily labourers, who make-up the great majority of the people of Bangladesh, are especially hard hit. They stand all day in the market place waiting for someone to hire them. No work that day, no income, no food. Work on the land grinds to a standstill in the chill foggy mornings. The harvest was in a month ago, and there is little work available. Any kind of work seems to slither to a halt, as people huddle in miserable groups, awaiting the arrival of the sun. Many collect together fallen leaves and rubbish to light a bit of fire and for a few moments feel warm. But the majority of Bengali households can cook on fires made of fallen leaves and twigs, and any rubbish that can be scavenged. The early mornings see minute girls in scanty clothing, huge baskets on their heads, sent out scavenging for the material to light fires and cook with that day. Cow dung especially is a good prize if found lying on the streets, as, dried, it makes a good fuel for cooking. It is hard for you to imagine how so many people cheerfully scratch out their living thus each and every day. Hard working, proud, making-do, cheerful people.

And then of course there is the country’s huge army of beggars, who beg for their daily bread each and every day. And not all by any means are blind, crippled or lame. Many have found no other way to fend for their daily bread. Many are the elderly who’s sons and daughters can scarce feed their own families let alone their dependants. Every village has its beggars. They live in the village and are known to everyone, and those who are able to make a meal, give them a handful of rice or a potato or onion, or whatever they can. We often wonder whether those who collect into bags or sacks each day do not actually have a better meal in the evening than those they begged from.

One of our faithful visitors at the hospital is a deaf and dumb lad (though more than a lad though) who strangely enough has become very attached to me, even dipping into his sack to give me little offerings from his takings! He even appeared one afternoon when I was sitting on the verandah behind the house, beaming all over his face, and clutching a steaming glass of sweet tea which he had purchased from a stall in the village for me. Then he sat beside me grinning like a Cheshire cat and fanning me as I obediently drank it. You can imagine my feelings!

I couple of weeks ago he again appeared on the verandah, very agitated, signing and signalling a message which I was obviously not understanding. So he took me by the arm, yanked me to my feet, and led me over to the hospital into the male ward and stood me triumphantly at the foot of a bed where a very sick man was just being admitted. It later transpired that he entered the house to beg, found the patient gasping for breath on the verandah, and had dragged him to the hospital himself! Amazing. And having got the patient into a bed, he had gone to call me. Unbelievable, but it happens…

In the classroom, examinations in full swing until the middle of December. The 1st year girls sat their first, and I have to relate that half of them will have to work harder and resit in January. The 2nd year group sat their first Midwifery examinations, and the majority have been successful and are now proudly wearing their red striped 3rd year caps. Their seniors sat their hospital finals successfully, and have also completed the external exams and await the results.