This trip to Bangladesh is special, not only because this is my 25-year-oldTh Visiting that country, or I’m traveling with new sustainability students, and it’s also because my daughter Elizabeth is here. When she grew up, she heard stories and saw photos of me traveling to Bangladesh, and always asked, “So when will you take me there?” Now, that time has come.
My course brings Bangladesh as a focal area, bringing together a variety of geoscience and environmental issues, and its intersection with the population that lives here. The sustainable development program for undergraduates is designed to provide students with a wide range of disciplines that are necessary for human well-being without irreparable harm to the planet. Many of these problems intersect in Bangladesh, where the population is large and growing, is one of the most dynamic and sensitive environments on the planet, suffering from a variety of natural disasters and threatened by climate change. As part of the class, we came to Bangladesh, where we saw the country and talked to people more than my lecture could teach.
The students also had two groups of projects interviewing people in four villages across the country. A similar project we did in 2023 interviewed people with “Extreme Climate and Migration in the Bangladesh Delta”. This is supervised by Robert Stojanov of Mendel University in Czech Republic, who joined us for the field trip. Another is: “Explain the effects of heat stress adaptation in Bangladesh through intergenerational, cross-sex and spatial lenses to expect changes in the perception of heat stress among young people and older people, who remember when they differ. Although he was originally from Bangladesh, this was supervised by Bishawjit Mallick of Utrecht University in the Netherlands.
We arrived in Bangladesh on Saturday morning on Thursday evening, March 13. At the airport, we met 10 Dhaka University (DU) students who gave us all the flowers. We then went to the 29-seat bus that would drive us over the next four days. There are also two professors, Kazi Matin Ahmed and Mahfuz Khan, who will help lead the trip.
Our first stop was the National Martyrs Memorial in Sarwar, outside the capital of Dhaka. In Savar, we started serving lunch for those who were eating. It was Ramadan and all the DU students and my two students were fasting during the day of the month. Refreshed, we head to the memorial with seven large upward monuments of synchronous triangles, set in a manicured, enthusiastic environment that includes 10 mass graves killed by those killed during the War of Independence. The site was one of the killing grounds of Pakistani troops during the 1971 war. It is estimated that as many as 3 million people were killed in the nine-month war until Indian intervention helped end the war.
From there we headed to the northwest to the hotel near the Jamuna River, which is the name of the Brahmin River in Bangladesh. This is because about 200 years ago, the river moved from the now so-called Old Brahmaputra River or from the now-known Brahmaputra River. We arrived at the hotel in time for “iftar”, which is a meal for Ramadan. It’s a meal of fruit, chickpeas, fried eggplant and other foods to eat after sunset. After IFTAR, we went shopping in the nearby Tangail city. Before returning to dinner, my students, with the help of DU students, bought fans, Lungis, Saris and other costumes.
After a good night’s sleep, we headed to the Jamuna River. The river is woven, meaning that during the dry season it consists of many crisscrossing channels and sandy islands called chars. With the increase in monsoon, it is almost all water, crossing 3-6 miles. Nevertheless, during the dry season, more than 700,000 people live on charcoal, farm and raise cattle. Some live there all year round, while others are seasonal only. In this vibrant river, charcoal is always changing and people must move on average every 10 years.
We sailed north of the Jamuna Bridge and the New Railway Bridge to my pick of charcoal. When I was here last time we found it changed from my map. After the false starts, we sail to the website of my choice. A passage moved westward, eroding the charcoal on that side, but there was a wide sand in the east where the river was. The detour delayed us, but we got off the boat and hiked to the nearest small village. In the village, students are divided into multiple Colombian and Du student groups and start interviews about life in charcoal and how it can change. Since the village has only six families, we walked to the next village and continued the interview in the high temperature of 98 degrees.
Near the village, there is a shallow tubule, which we pour cold water on our heads to relieve. Multiple groups continued to interview people from the last village until it was time to leave. The teams gathered many stories about people living on charcoal, which remained when it was eroded, but returned when it reappeared from the river. Others moved to it later. Some live in charcoal all year round, others spend the entire season during the monsoon season, when most people are submerged on the mainland.
Something was a little confused when leaving. Our boat moved to a closer location, but we had to come back where we were. The groups took different paths to the shore of charcoal, but we all ended up back on the boat. We returned to the Ghats (pier) and the bus took us back to the hotel in time to Iftar. We ended the end of the first day, which included a traditional Bangladeshi Ball music concert followed by dinner.
