Post-Cyclone

First of all: Ben and I are fine. Safe and healthy, and as of today our power and Internet are both up – so we can finally contact all our friends and family and let them know we’re okay.

We’d heard word from the State Department that a cyclone was on its way – I have to give them credit; they really do look after their own. So we were prepared for a day or two of no electricity and minor inconveniences. The storm hit Dhaka on the 15th, after we had just finished watching a pirated copy of the movie “Ratatouille” (great fun, except it makes you crave French bread and soft cheese and mushrooms like crazy – none of which are really available here). The wind started to pick up, a sudden crescendo from a dull rumble to a terrifying scream. It beat against the windows so hard I was sure they would shatter under its pressure. Our laundry had been drying on the balcony clothesline before the storm; at about 11:00 I remembered it and got up from bed to see if it was still there. Miraculously, it was – but several socks had fallen to the floor, and the T-shirts were knotted around themselves on the line. With the wind and rain roaring around us we went outside, fiddled with the clothespins, brought in the things that looked most likely to fly away, went back to bed. I lay awake, tossing and turning for a long time – such an awful, heart-wrenching sound, that wind. Then at about 1:30, clever me, I remembered that I had brought along some earplugs. Stuffed them into my ears and slept like a baby.

We woke Friday morning to quiet grayness. Nothing looked particularly amiss – there was no power, but since we are rich and privileged bideshis, we have a generator wired to our ceiling fans and to a few switches and outlets in each room – so we didn’t even have to suffer darkness. The day was cool and drizzly, and we spent most of it inside until we got restless late in the afternoon. The world of the Diplomatic Enclave didn’t look much different – a lot of branches and sludge piled along the sides of the streets, trees with recent wounds, here and there a young one uprooted. The area around Gulshan was dark – no electricity in anyplace without a generator – but our favorite Thai place was open, and we were even able to do a little evening-time marketing. Life as usual, mostly.

It wasn’t until today – Sunday – that I was able to get information on how bad the cyclone actually was. We don’t currently get a newspaper, and all our news comes via our little electronic boxes. So today, with Internet service working at last, I went straight to NPR’s news website. And o what a terrible wrath the storm hath wrought. More than 1700 counted dead so far in the southern part of the country, and many of the small villages are inaccessible to relief workers, so there’s no telling how many more will be found. Hundreds of thousands of refugees – people whose homes were nothing more than a few corrugated tin sheets and bamboo poles, and whose worldly possessions were some baskets of rice and lentils, woven cane sleeping mats, a water jug, a few colorful saris, perhaps a radio. Outside some chickens, a boat and a fishing net. It is so little. It is so much.

And here I sit, typing away on my little electronic box, in the comfort of my air-conditioned three-bedroom concrete flat, far away in the Diplomatic Enclave where all the bideshis live. And soon our dinner will be ready, and our cook will come to the door and knock softly, and we will eat until we are full and he will clean up the mess, and we will go peacefully to sleep, and all around us nothing will be different.