Bangladesh is located on the Bay of Bengal, surrounded on all sides of its land by India and with one section bordering Myanmar (Burma).

The economy of the country is based on farming clothing exports. Bangladesh is one of the poorest countries in the world, with an average income of less than $4 per day and over 60% of the population living on less than $2 per day.

Bangladesh

Bangladesh is divided into seven administrative regions (or states) and 64 districts.

Bangladesh

The language of the country is Bengali or Bangla, and its script is based on Sanskrit. About 41% of the population is literate.

Almost 90% of the population is Muslim, and the rest are mostly Hindu. Just as in India (where the majority are Hindu), there are religious conflicts with minority groups in Bangladesh.

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Bangladesh was a part of India during British colonial rule, but after 1947 was partitioned and became a part of Pakistan. This country, known as East Pakistan, shared no border or language with West Pakistan. In 1971, this led to a war of independence with estimates of up to three million people killed before East Pakistan achieved independence and became Bangladesh.

A Brief History of BangladeshThe flag of Bangladesh reflects its history… a red sun on a

green background, representing the bloodshed of its War of Independence from Pakistan on its green farm lands.

The hero of the 1971 struggle for independence was Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who was assassinated in 1975 by Bangladeshi political rivals. His political party, the Awami League, has gone in and out of power since that time. The rival political party is the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, founded by General Ziaur Rahman in 1975.

Bangladesh

One of the most crowded countries in the world, with its population of over 162 million living on less than 55,000 square miles. Bangladesh is the seventh densest population in the world in the 94th smallest country out of 113 countries. Almost half of available land is uninhabited, meaning it is used for agriculture or is forest land.

I went to Bangladesh in 1999 as a trainer for Peace Corps –

At that time, Peace Corps had not had a program in Bangladesh since before 1971, when the country was still East Pakistan.

Twenty-two volunteers, (the “B-1’s”)

went through more than three months of training before being assigned

sites in the countryside.

Most of the Peace Corps Volunteers worked with adult students, teaching

English language and education methodology.

All of the Peace Corps Volunteers studied written &

spoken Bangla with Bangladeshi teachers

during the training.

As part of my work in training the Peace Corps Volunteers, I had the chance to visit different parts of Bangladesh, as much by boat as by land.

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Bangladesh

A Hindu temple

An ancient Muslim mosque

Father Eugene Homrich & The Mandi (Garo) people of

The Modhpur Forest

“Where there is a government Forest Department, there is no forest.”

The Modhpur Forest, home to the Mandi people and Father Homrich’s mission, is currently less than 10% the size that it was in 1950.

Father Homrich’s church and his mission is to keep young Mandi children from slavery & prostitution. They are taught trades and often take in by adoptive families. Father Homrich has also worked to preserve as much of the Modhpur Forest as possible.

The people of Bangladesh survive by agriculture in the countryside and factories in the cities, such as the cigarette factory above.

Water plays a crucial role in agriculture for the country, with monsoon rains and flooding replenishing the soils, even as they often cause havoc for villages.

Fishing is prevalent both in the ocean waters of the Bay of Bengal, as well as inland, such as in the Kaptai Lake and Foy Lake region of the district of Chittagong.

A landscape of water…

The Bay of Bengal is the largest in the world, and crucial both economically and militarily to Bangladesh & India. It is also host to some of the worst cyclones and typhoons in recorded history.

Chittagong District & The Hill Tracts

This region is the only one with elevated topography in Bangladesh, and also has the lowest population density. More than half of the roughly 1.5 million indigenous peoples of the Chittagong Hill Tracts are Buddhists. There have been many recent conflicts with resettlement of impoverished Muslims in this region.

The Sundarbans Forest in the southwest corner of Bangladesh, bordering the Bay of Bengal, is the largest mangrove forest in the world and home to many rural peoples as well as the Bengali tiger. The forest is roughly 6% of Bangladesh’s land mass.