Mapping the changing seasons: James takes part in a listening exercise to learn about the local impact of climate change(Photo: © James Pender/CMS)On a recent tour in south-west Bangladesh, mission partner James Pender and his colleagues met local groups to discuss adapting to climate change. As they listened to local people’s stories, the impact became clear.
At my first stop at Bodarpur village, accompanied by the local manager Dulal, I spoke to a smiling farmer, Hossain Mullah.
We sat outside his simple home while he sent a boy to shimmy up a coconut tree, bringing down some fresh young coconuts so that we could drink the refreshing juice inside (closer in taste to lemon juice than the milky contents of the ripe coconuts we are familiar with in the UK). In the background, fresh shoots in the rice paddies glowed an improbable shade of luminous green.
Beneath the rural idyll…
But Hossain’s smile belayed worries within, and in this rural idyll not was all it appeared. Hossain, whose wife Hafeza is a member of one of CBSDP’s women’s Development Groups, is reliant on rainwater to irrigate his rice fields. However, this year the rain was insufficient to grow rice as usual in the monsoon – yet last year, terrible floods from too much rain destroyed his rice crops. Too much rain when he doesn’t want it and not enough rain when he needs it!
“All the farmers will die”, he dramatically proclaimed and it isn’t just rice. His dondol, a type of gourd, was no longer producing vegetables, while his mango trees around his home hadn’t produced fruit for four years due to changing weather patterns. “It wasn’t always like this”, he informed us. “Ten years ago the seasons were regular and predictable and farming was better.”
I asked him why he thought the seasons could no longer be relied upon? He answered: “For us farmers we know that less rain or too much rain is coming and that it is a problem, but we cannot say why – only Allah (God) knows.”
Unfortunately, I am not in the same position as Hossain as I do know why the seasons are so unreliable and that the predictions concerning climate changes are exactly as he describes. Through giving talent and ability to scientists around the world, God has provided us with knowledge but I am also aware that due to our excessively greedy western lifestyles we have put Hossain in a vulnerable position, which left me feeling very uncomfortable.
A similar story elsewhere
As I headed further south near the sleepy village of Jobarpar in Barisal District with its ever-increasing flowing rivers and ponds, almost everywhere you find the same story. During a break in the heavy monsoon rain as the sun came up, I went for a walk down the slippery mud road behind the church compound. People are very sociable and one lady named Hanol got chatting to me and invited me to her house for a cup of tea with her neighbour Sudir, and with typical Bengali generosity ran out to buy a packet of biscuits.
Sudir had three children and his two girls were named Bristi (Rain) and Bonna (Flood) an ironic comment on his circumstances as, like Hossain, Sudir had suffered from a lack of rainfall for his ‘pre-monsoon’ rice crop (in this area farmers have two seasons in which they cultivate rice). He had got a poor harvest – less than half of last year’s – which was a real kick in the teeth for a smallholder like himself; in previous years, however, he had suffered devastating floods. My encounter left me reflecting that whether Christians like Sudir and Hanol, or Muslims like Hossain and Hafeza, climate change is no respecter of persons – it hits all.
A disappearing village?
There are so many ways to assist the poor, but in the village of Kanainagor I felt very helpless. Being honest, I cannot see a future for St James’s Church and the 35 families that make up its congregation. In 50 years time perhaps, the village will be under the sea or at least uninhabitable. The only option is probably to make them aware of the situation they face and give them the skills to go and find a job elsewhere, as well as enable them to harvest rainwater so they can at least have freshwater to drink.
The frightening thing is, however, that there are millions of people in the coastal belt just like them.
During a time of discussion with the church members of St James’s Church, I was told: “We don’t know what we will do now; in the river there are no fish, on our trees we have no fruit and in our fields we have no crops.”
In 1 Corinthians 12:26-27 Paul writes to the church: “If one part of the body suffers, all the other parts suffer with it... All of you are Christ’s body, and each one is a part of it.”
As we are all part of the one human family we should feel the pain of the people of Sonagonia and Kanainagor.
As the general election in the UK approaches, please let us pray, lobby elected representatives and act to reduce the impact on the earth from our daily actions, helping to prevent an increase in suffering.