A friend of mine came Bangladesh from Germany in ear Dec 2007. He was a student as well as volunteer worker. Staying some days in Dhaka, he expressed his interest to see the affected areas of recent devastating cyclone SIDR. I selected a most affected area called Southkhali under Bagerhat district (Souther Part of Bangladesh). We make a plan to go that place next day. Accordingly we went to Khulna by bus & found that being the road condition is not good the only way to go by boat or motorcycle. Boat takes 10 hours to reach Southkhali. So, we decided to o by motorcycle & contacted with some persons who will take us that area next morning.
The next morning we started our journey. The road was really damaged but the motorcycle drvier was expert in his job. So, we did not face any problem. After 2.5 hours journey, we reached that village. What did we see? Just unbelievable & we can not express our feelings by writing. Whole village was destroyed. We did not find any house or Tree standing. All were fallen on the ground. Almost all people were under open Sky. They had no shelter, no food, and no cloth. We saw many new graves & came to know that more than 100 people died in this village. Almost all were women & children. My friend was surprised to see the havoc.
To talk about that Cyclone, we went to a family who were under a Polythene shade. We heard their experience of that night. He informed the he lost his wife, a son & brother that night. He was crying while he was telling this story to us. After an hour, he invited us to take lunch with him. Considering the situation, we said No. But he informed that being we came from long way, we must be hungry & he ordered his elder daughter to cook rice & egg for us. So, we could not show logic to say No.
However, after a very nice & memorable lunch under the open sky, while I asked how could he arrange the rice & egg, he replied though he lost everything, but yesterday he got some rice (around 2 Kilograms) from Government as relief & collected 2 eggs for us from his neihbour. We also knew that he did not know what he would eat at that night.
Hearing this, we had no words to say. But my friend whispered: Mahmud, this is called Bangladeshi hospitality