“Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.”
– Maya Angelou
I returned to Bangladesh this week, this time with a small team of volunteers to work with the Rohingya refugees. News about the genocide in Myanmar against the Rohingya Muslims and the difficulties they still face as refugees in Bangladesh is often hard to find. Coverage in U.S. media has been sparse and donations are already decreasing, even though the needs continue to grow.
The members of our team — like members of pretty much all humanitarian aid teams — wanted to put boots on the ground and help these nearly forgotten refugees. One of the things that has been the most striking to our volunteers is how very similar these refugees are to us.
As parents, we share a love for our children and a desire to keep them safe.
One mother told us how, six months ago, she and her husband took their seven children and fled their village when the soldiers came and starting burning homes and killing people. She saw many of her neighbors executed. It took them a month to cross the border, not because the distance is far but because they were hiding from soldiers looking to finish the job.
During those frightening times, they ate grass and leaves to keep their bellies full until they could slip into Bangladesh and move into a refugee camp. A father showed us the deep, angry-looking machete wounds on his legs, sustained as he scrambled to get his children to safety. Wouldn’t we do the same? Parental love is universal.
The laughter of children is also universal. Everywhere we go, children come out of their shelters to follow us and interact with us. They show off their (limited) English: “Hello. How are you? I am fine, thank you.” We teach them “high five” and use our very limited Bangla to answer back. Some are shy and hang back — often the girls. Those are the ones I gravitate towards, trying to engage them in simple play. We are so touched and honored when women invite us into their homes and show off their babies — and their neatly kept living quarters. They thank us for coming but it is we who are grateful for the opportunity to sit with them and hear their stories.
The heat is stifling right now and, like children everywhere, the refugee kids in the camps love to use water as a way to cool off. A few young boys wanted to show us how brave they are by jumping from a “cliff” into the cool brown water below. Some used well water to bathe in the heat of the day, surely a relief from the heat. Still, even in the heat, some children (mostly boys) were playing outside — universal games of tag and ball
Of course there are differences as well. I sleep in a safe bed, in a safe home, with an abundance of food to feed my children. I don’t ever worry about the military coming to Pleasant Grove, burning it to the ground, raping the girls and women and killing indiscriminately.
In the United States, I can choose how I feed my babies. But in refugee camps, an inability to breastfeed can mean a death sentence for a baby.
We met a young mother with a 3-month-old who weighed only eight or nine pounds, who relies on aid from outside organizations to help purchase formula (which is exorbitantly expensive) or she feeds her baby rice water. The difficulties are compounded by the long distances she must walk to get clean water to mix the formula and the problem of being able to adequately clean a bottle.
I also saw a toddler boy with rickets today, a disease rarely seen in the United States. It is associated with a lack of Vitamin D and insufficient dietary calcium, like one could expect from a rice and lentil based diet, with limited variety and virtually no access to calcium-rich foods. The rickets in his legs were accompanied by the swollen belly of malnutrition. With a million people living on an extremely limited diet, both in amount and variety, he is surely not the only one.
The scope of the problem is immense, to the point of overwhelming. We know we are just a drop in the ocean of need, but we are grateful for the opportunity to contribute in some small way.
Perhaps Edward Hale said it best: “I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something.”
Holly Richardson is welcomed into the home of a Rohingya Muslim refugee in Bangladesh.
Holly Richardson, a Salt Lake Tribune columnist, is grateful for the opportunity to serve and knows you do not need to cross an ocean to serve. You can simply cross the street.
