A Story of Nothing Left

By Caroline Brennan

When Bengali fisherman Khalam Mazi ("boat man") saw the remains of his boat along the sand the morning after Cyclone Sidr, only one thought crossed his mind: he wished he were dead.

He tells me this with his boat — now a pile of firewood — at his feet. His oldest son sits on the remains of the boat as he would if he was out at sea. But sand is all around them and they haven't been on water since it came mercilessly to them. The story right now for Khalam and this fishing community on the Bay of Bengal is a story of nothing left.

These coastal and predominantly fishing communities were the hardest hit by the cyclone due to the tidal surge that violently rushed a mile inland, tearing apart generations of people's work. For Khalam, that means that, when he looks out at the empty coast line, he sees nothing he can call his own — no source of food to feed his family that night, no way to earn a living the next day, no sense of calm for his anxiety about keeping his family afloat.

"To die would have been better for me," he says.

Like many fishermen, Khalam, 45, never went to school; his four sons, the oldest at 19, have never sat in a classroom. "If I send my children to school, how will I pay for someone to work on my boat?" he asks. Instead, they are masters of the water, their lives centered entirely on currents and the fishing potential in a bay that is just a minute's walk from where they sleep. Fishing is a dignified way of life and Khalam and his family used to earn enough — an average of $2 a day — to get by.

"Before the cyclone, we had no problem. I caught fish, sold it, [and] my living was going on in such a way. Until we go [fishing] I don't know how to live or survive," he says.

Without a boat, and with only sand where his house once stood, Khalam feels like he's sinking. A new boat, even modest in size at 30 feet long by 4 feet wide, will cost as much as $520. Fishing nets are the real blow, given the expensive imported materials. One net costs as much as $1,000. Khalam already owed $75 for his previous boat and without any savings, his debt is likely to skyrocket.

"I have four children — sons — and a wife. I am considering a loan, but it will be on the high interest. The loan sharks ask for payment in fish and pay at the bottom rate," he says.

What Khalam was able to salvage was some debris to make up a shelter. Standing behind him is a tin box — their home — its walls and roof made of corrugated tin sheets, with donated used clothing filling in the empty spaces. The tin brings out the worst of the weather surrounding it and, for Khalam's family tucked away under the one-room cover, it is cold at night and sizzling in the day.

Surviving the Storm

Khalam's family is fortunate to have survived. A reported 3,400 people, mostly along coastal villages, died in the cyclone. Like hundreds of thousands of people across the country, Khalam's family took shelter in a designated safe spot in the community. For two days leading up to the disaster, government officials and aid workers — including CRS partner Caritas Bangladesh — announced updates and warnings for people to know when and where to take cover. In Khalam's community, that was a local hotel just high enough to dodge the water's siege.

Khalam stayed behind in their house that evening to watch over the boat. He knew how much was at stake and felt he must know what would happen. Two hours after its start the storm came crashing in, ripping apart the walls around him.

"I knew I had to leave, but I saw some corrugated tin sheets flying around and thought I might be seriously injured. So, I crawled along the ground dodging the flying material until I reached the hotel," says Khalam.

All of Khalam's family members were there, and about 500 more people from the area who had crowded into the lobby. Men were on the ground floor and women on the upper floors.

"During this time, we prayed to Allah," says Khalam.

The cover that was available saved the people — but not what they owned and needed to survive. When morning came and the waters receded, Khalam and the others emerged to find what remained.

"We found not much debris, not anything, not even my house," says Khalam.

Over the next three days, Khalam and his sons built what is now their shelter. Nevertheless, for him and his family, home is on the water. Until he can get back there, to all that he knows, Khalam struggles to answer his family's question of what to do from here.

"Without a boat, how will we live? This is our only profession," he says. "With our boat broken, our life is broken."

Rebuilding After the Cyclone

Across the country, people are facing different challenges and levels of loss. In coastal areas, much of the land has been converted into ponds for prawn farming, an exploitative industry in which impoverished people are persuaded to borrow money to convert their field into a pond and repay the debt with their prawn harvest. The destruction of ponds by water contamination has left some farmers in crisis. In some areas, winter crops of vegetables and rice (to be harvested just a couple of weeks after the cyclone hit) are gone. Fields hit with the storm's waters are left covered in salt and infertile. For day laborers who worked in the fields, fishing, collecting sand or husking rice, employers no longer have work or the means to pay them. Many people have one, if not multiple, debts.

Caritas has planned to create employment opportunities for an estimated 9,000 people by rebuilding damaged infrastructure at the community level and establishing means to resume their trade. To date, CRS and Caritas have reached 51,000 families with food and emergency relief.

Caroline Brennan is South Asia regional information officer for Catholic Relief Services. She is based in New Delhi, India.