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© World Vision 2007 (Photo: Amio Ascencion)
In the early morning, within hours of of Cyclone Sidr's strike, seven-year-old World Vision sponsored girl Supria Mondol repeatedly asked her mother where they would live the following night.
Her family's huts, constructed of bamboo, rice-straw and wood, collapsed totally in the storm of November 15.
They were lucky to escape the deadly attack by leaving their shaking huts for neighbor's house, which was stronger than theirs.
Instead of asking for breakfast, Supria anxiously asked "Where will we stay the night? Our house is broken!"
Her bewildered mother, 45-year-old Radha Mondol, could not find appropriate words to calm down her daughter's fears, because she had no answer.
Supria is the youngest and sixth among the six sisters of the family. The older four sisters are already married and live at their husbands' houses. Supria and her 14 year old sister Anita were at home with their mother when the cyclone winds began to blow.
Their father, who travels from one place to another as a day laborer, was not at home to witness this decade's most devastating storm.
"In that night I could not understand what to do first - how I should try to save my households things and my daughters. Finally I left my house with my daughters. The wind was so strong. I embraced Supria tight so that she could not be taken away by the high wind," Radha said.
Supria and her family belong to West Bajua village of Dacope sub-district, a World Vision programme area around 300 kilometres south of Dhaka.
On November 14, when danger signal was given at level 3, World Vision staff members and volunteers started to warn people about the possible tropical storm.
But Radha said that till the afternoon of Nov 15 they found it hard to believe that a cyclone was coming that could leave them homeless. She said there were not much raining and the wind did not feel strong.
By November 15, the signal had reached level 10, and staff and volunteers divided into groups to give messages through loudspeakers for villagers to evacuate their houses and take shelter in more stable structures.
Hearing the warning, Radha, with help from one of her neighbors, tied their house's straw-bamboo roofs with ropes and fixed the small posts more firmly into the earth.
"We heard World Vision volunteers were giving warning messages to protect our lives. But we could not guess that it would be so strong and would come so quickly," Radha said.
"When I saw how much our house was shaking, I told Anita to go to my nephew's house. Within moments, our house tilted diagonally, from north to south. We took shelter on the veranda but realized it was not safe there. That was when I hugged Supria to me and ran to my nephew's house too."
Anita, who is a student of grade eight at West Bajua High School, managed to take some books for her and her little sister as she made the dash to safer shelter.
"For me the books are the most valuable things. So, I wanted to save as much as I could," Anita said.
"Next morning we could not believe that that was our homestead. Both living and cooking houses were collapsed and destroyed. Our coconut-leaf walls had fallen on one side and the rice-straw roof on the other. Trees from nearby, mainly banana trees, had been laid over the top of the ruins. Our belongings were scattered everywhere," said Anita.
Their floor bedding was sodden and ruined. Worse, the three kilograms of rice they had stored in an earthen pot, or hara, had broken and most of the rice was gone. "We had to recover a part of this destroyed wet rice for our meal that day," Radha said.
Though the family had little clothing beforehand, now all they had was what they wore. The clothes they pulled out from the ruins were torn and filthy.
The books and notebooks that Anita could not take with her were either blown away or destroyed. The clock hanging on the wall of their hut was smashed to pieces. So was their radio.
"In between my studies and households works, I liked to listen from the radio programmes, especially Bangla songs. But is broken now. I do not know when my father would be able to buy me another," Anita said sadly. "My daughter loves to listen to radio programmes. But her favorite one band radio is broken down," Radha said.
The girls were able to salvage a tiny wooden mirror, the only one they owned, though it now has spots and damage on it. After picking through the ruins, they now also have their sandals back. But they have searched in vain for their one family photo, blown away by the storm.
A flooded container of 'sidur' can be seen mixed in with water hyacinth on nearby marshy land. It is Radha's, the vermillion powder that a married Hindu woman always wears to symbolize her marriage.
Some of this family's losses mean immediate risk for them. One of their two water pots, or matth, is also cracked, meaning that drinking water for them will quickly become a problem. In this district, most natural water sources are contaminated with arsenic so villagers are dependent on the rainwater they collect.
The mosquito net that used to protect them from mosquito bites as they slept is also now unusable, according to Radha.
As for food, there is little to go around now, and even less left for the future.
"We had growing bananas on trees, papayas in the small orchard on the homestead. There was a small vegetable garden that used to meet our family needs. And the pumpkin creeper, which was just started yielding - all are destroyed," Radha said with a deep sigh.
The family rice paddy annually produces around 1300 kilograms of rice, an important income generator for them. But the heavy wind stripped the plants of their strength and their harvest. Radha opened some rice cornstalk to show that nothing was left inside.
"You see, the rice plants left standing have no rice in them. We will hardly be able to get 300 kilograms from this field now. How can we meet our needs with this?" she asked, adding that most of the rice fields in this locality have met the same fate.
World Vision stood besides families like Supria's and helped them with a 7-day relief package, containing food, clothing and other basic items, after the Sidr attack. This family also received two bundles of corrugated-iron sheet to help with shelter.
Asked what they needed most now, Anita pointed out the damage to not just her house but many houses in the village, including her school. Radha was also worried about where they could find shelter.
"Though we have received strong corrugated iron sheets from World Vision, we do not have enough money to buy the wood and bamboo to rebuild our house,"she said. However, she hoped that her husband would be able to build a temporary shelter using some of the pillars from the ruins.
"While we are still struggling to survive, it is very tough for us to build a strong house," Radha said, then added, "On the other hand, if we fail to rebuild a stronger house, we will be in risk of further danger. Because, any storm with low speed would be able to blow our houses down again."
Supria, as a sponsored child, received school bags, notebooks, pens and mosquito nets as part of the child programme activities. She also took part in children's gatherings every year.
It has been hard for her to understand where these things have gone. She liked to play with marbles, and had a small collection. But these have been thrown away in the cleanup, too small to salvage from the mud and straw. Even her toothbrush has gone and cannot yet be replaced.
Supria cannot say what is most important to her at the moment. Instead, she looks at her mother, in hope that Radha will soon have the answers she seeks to her questions.
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
