Shelter Brings Comfort to Cyclone Widow

By David Snyder

Rupiya herself will tell you that one year ago, she would never have imagined the life she leads now. That was before her husband died, before she lost her house, before she lost her parents. But much has changed since Cyclone Sidr hit Bangladesh.

"My husband was a fisherman," Rupiya says. "He was out fishing with five others in a boat when the cyclone hit. We have never found him, or any of the others."

On the night of November 15, 2007, Rupiya had little time to worry about her husband—she was fighting her own battle for survival. When Cyclone Sidr started lashing southern Bangladesh with wind gusts of 155 miles an hour, Rupiya's small house of bamboo and thatch stood little chance.

"The wind started to blow away my house," Rupia says. "So I took shelter in my uncle's house."

When the storm finally was over, it left destruction on an impossible scale behind it. More than 363,000 houses were destroyed—among them Rupiya's and more than 100 others in and around her village of Hogulpati. In all, more than 8.9 million Bangladeshis were affected by Cyclone Sidr.

The days after are a bit of a blur for Rupiya. They began with the news that her father and brother had been killed by the storm. There was as yet no news of her husband. Gathering her three children, she fled to the only refuge she knew of—the remains of her father's house, damaged by the winds and tidal surge but still standing.

"Then my father's house fell down," Rupiya remembers. "And I stayed in places I made on my own."

First Step: Shelter

Wrestling with the increasing certainty that her husband, too, had been killed, Rupiya got the news that her mother had died in the weeks after the storm. It all seemed unreal. But then Rupiya heard that Catholic Relief Services, working through local partners Caritas Bangladesh, was looking to help. Reaching more than 62,000 families with emergency relief in the weeks after the disaster, Caritas Bangladesh, with CRS support, set out to rebuild homes for those affected by the cyclone. It became one of the largest shelter projects ever carried out by Caritas Bangladesh. The news could not have come at a better time for Rupiya.

"I went to the [local government] and told them my story," Rupiya says. "Then they went to Caritas when they were doing house construction. They came and visited this place and gave me tin sheeting."

That sheeting was the first step toward a permanent house, completed in July 2008, for Rupiya and her children. In all, CRS built 94 new homes in Hogulpati and the surrounding villages. Each house is supported by 12 concrete pillars to provide a much stronger structure than traditional wood shelters. Built on a patch of ground immediately beside the site of her former home, the new house provided Rupiya and her children with the first bit of good news they had received in a while.

But a young widow with no education faces challenges in rural Bangladesh. Once able to stay at home with her children and take care of the house on the small salary her husband made, she is now the sole earner, making what she can through odd jobs as a domestic worker. As the shelter project wraps up, CRS is looking to provide employment opportunities in this community—much needed in the wake of the devastating storm.

And while Rupiya struggles with the monumental changes of the last year, she still finds some hope.

"Before Sidr, my life was so charmed," Rupiya says. "I was just doing housework, and my husband was fishing. Now I work wherever I can, and I have a scarcity of food, but at least now my children have shelter."

David Snyder is a photojournalist who has traveled to more than 30 countries with CRS.