The Sundarbands

We took a day trip down south yesterday to visit the area hit by Cyclone Aila and also the Sundarbands. Although we could not enter the Sundarbands without government permission because of the highjackers and man eating tigers there (no joke!). We talked with a family who said that last Friday a fisherman in their village was eaten by a tiger! Supposedly the tigers get desperate and swim the river over to the village and the people have to run for their lives. Yikes!! I guess you could say that bears are to Alaska as tigers are to Bangladesh!?


We stopped to get green coconut water to drink. Chugga chug!!!


Looking across the river into the Sundarbands.


There use to be a house here but it got destroyed in Aila. Another point of interest about this photo is the man standing there only had one arm. His left arm was shot off by police because he was caught chopping down wood for fuel in the Sundarbands. The Sundarbands are a protected area.


Many people lost not only their homes, but their livelihoods. They were primarily into shrimp farming since this are was high in shrimp and they could make good money from exporting it to the U.S. But after Cyclone Aila hit, the water became poisoned with too much salt and it also brought fingerling fish that have eaten up the remaining shrimp.


This was cropland before the cyclone hit. Now it's waterlogged. We now have seen the devastating affects of a cyclone in Bangladesh.


The boat ride over to another village. That water was incredibly salty!


We found a solar panel there. I love it, especially since Bangladesh has bad energy problems.


We were invited to the home of one of the director's of GouF for dinner. The family was so sweet to us! Ha they tried to make American food for us like french fries and fried shrimp and noodles but no rice! :) Also, they heard through Zakaria before that I like whole wheat rotis and so they searched everywhere and finally found it for me! So we had those and also "hamburgers" which were patties made from egg and potato and real ketchup! Yum! And they gave us little sweets that tasted like doughnut holes. I think the women cooked all day just for us.