Money in the Ground

Salt production in Moheshkhali Island accounts for more than half of domestic consumption.

In the fields at Tajiakata of Moheshkhali’s Kutubjom Union they’re lifting water, bucket by bucket. The criss-cross channels are hand dug to entice a little of the sea inland. Seawater is being lifted, litre by litre, to the first of four shallow tanks carved in the ground.

Salt is one of the main industries of Moheshkhali Island.

Even in the morning the sun is fire, but then they’re counting on evaporation. When labourers sweat, sweat is salty.

It’s a semi-lunar landscape, yellow and brown, treeless and arid. It’s a shallow water-trough landscape of salt heaps. Leaving his nearby home at some minutes before 7 a.m., Abdus Salam, 34, will soon be there. For eighteen years he’s been harvesting salt.

“Water collection is the most difficult task,” he says.

For Salam, salt is a livelihood; but salt is also much more.

Salinity in the human, salinity in the sea: for centuries poets and evolutionists have contemplated a distant ancestral link to the earliest life forms that from the primordial soup clambered ashore.

Labourers Mahamadul Karim and Shefatul Islam lift seawater by bucket to begin the salt making process.

More than food seasoning, more than food preserver, sodium chloride is life’s essence: where we came from and where we are. There can be no life without salt. Should we cry, we shed salty tears.

Evaporation ponds. Salt is simple brilliance.

In South Asia there’s independence too in the white sea-spice. On 12 March 1930 Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi began his famous Salt Satyagraha, a march from near Ahmedabad to the Gujarati seaside village of Dandi. At 6:30 a.m. on 6 April Gandhi collected salt by the shore.

Protesting the British salt monopoly brought worldwide attention to the non-violent independence movement and many in India took confidence from Gandhi’s symbolic act. Many followed his example and were arrested. Salt is a harbinger of coming freedom.

The afternoon sun illuminates the salt fields.

Salt taxes also encouraged the French Revolution and paid for Columbus to sail to the New World. At a time when half of China’s revenue came from salt, a Great Wall was made. At the centre of human civilisation you’ll find salt.

Aztec mythology meanwhile includes Huixtocihuatl, goddess of fertility who presided over salt and saltwater. In Hinduism auspicious salt is used in housewarmings and weddings. Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) in a hadith recorded in Sunan Ibn Majah reportedly said, “Salt is the master of your food. God sent down four blessings from the sky: fire, water, iron and salt.”

Religion, civilisation, human life: salt has shaped history.

But Salam’s talk is not of this. He explains that older water will drain through adjoining, ever shallower troughs. He knows evaporation will take to its task. In the final polythene-lined tank after about a week, salt crystals awaiting collection shall sparkle, says he. Salt is brilliance in its simplicity.

The lunar landscape of the salt fields.

He predicts merchants will buy direct from his field. He understands that if he needs to store salt when the monsoon arrives he can bury it, wrapped in polythene, underground. “There’s money in the ground,” say the people of Moheshkhali.

More than half of Moheshkhali's population participates in salt.

When labourers sweat, their sweat is salty.

Salt is also a budget. From 5 kanies of land leased for upwards of 40,000 taka Salam calculates that with two labourers employed he can produce 300 maunds of salt per kanie during the January to April season. He’ll need 100 pounds of polythene for one kanie at 75 taka per pound.

There are contingencies to account for: a falling price caused by transport disruption and late winter fogs that bringing moisture to undo the sun’s work in salt’s disheartening dissolution.

Moheshkhali produces the largest portion of salt to meet domestic demand. Salt farming of about 19,000 acres enlists some degree of participation from most of the island’s 3-lac population.

Abdus Salam, 34, has been working in the salt fields for 18 years.

Yet ironically the Bay of Bengal is best suited for salt. While averaging 3.5% salinity, the world’s seas are not equally saline.

Salt crystals ready for collection.

Of open seas, the Red Sea is considered the saltiest at 4%, due to a lack of rain and river inflow, and because of its narrow connection to the less saline Indian Ocean. Enclosed water bodies can be much saltier still, like the Dead Sea with 34.2% salinity. 

The Yellow, Baltic and Black seas by contrast, like the Bay of Bengal, hold below-average salt content.

Afternoon at Tajiakata salt fields.

Salam can’t consider seawater but he does consider land. Sandy soils are not much good, where absorption is high. Suitable land produces salt more quickly, of higher quality.

As the word ‘salary’ shares its Latin root with salt: either money to buy salt or payment in salt, it’s easy to conclude that Salam has it right… Salt means food on a table and a family fed.

Should we cry, tears are salty.

The alien landscape of Shaplapur in northern Moheshkhali.

This article is published in The Daily Star, here: Moheshkhali's Money in the Ground

Salt. The stuff of life.

At the Coalface

The lift shafts at Barapukuria Coal Mine.

Dhaka, Khulna, Rangpur and Barisal: Mr. Zhang likes to travel. “Bangladesh is poor,” he says, interpreted from Mandarin, “but people are very honest, especially in the northern villages.”

As a Buddhist, Mr. Zhang believes in reincarnation. According to him, everything in this life is the outcome of a previous life. Something in his previous life brought him to Bangladesh this time around.

Office buildings at the mine.

The office buildings at his workplace are white tiled on the outer walls, with blue tiled angular eaves to break the monotony of a flat roof. The driveway, like the exterior of the stairwells, is circular. There’s a garden with neatly trimmed hedges. It could be any random factory office in industrial China except it isn’t. Mr. Zhang works as an engineer at Barapukuria Coal Mine in Dinajpur’s Parbatipur, and has done for a decade.

“I mostly speak to local colleagues in English,” he says, “but with the help of books and audio material I also learnt some Bangla. In Bangla it’s interesting how when people introduce how many siblings they have they include themselves in the number.”

Garden in front of the office.

Barapukuria is run by Chinese contractors. It’s unsurprising that the canteen serves Chinese fare and that signs commonly feature Mandarin characters. What’s more interesting is the mosque built for local workers in a similarly Chinese style, with white tiles and blue trim.

“At the core,” says Mr. Zhang, “all religions are the same.”

Barapukuria offices.

The Barapukuria gateway has seen better days.

Coal mining is a risky business and Barapukuria has not been a project free of controversy. Some risks are inherent: opening a new coal face where the air may contain carbon monoxide or methane, where temperatures can be high or a sudden inrush of water may occur.

Despite planning that currently includes the services of a British consultant, Barapukuria has suffered from land subsidence affecting surrounding farmlands; locals have complained of adverse impact on the water table; and some years ago workers went on strike.

The main entrance. The mine thinks it's a tea plantation.

There was also an underground flooding disaster that has since resulted in refined safety measures, put in place one hundred metres ahead of the drilling; and a concrete wall being constructed along the northern side at significant cost, to prevent further waterlogging.

The lift shaft.

There have also been issues with compensating and relocating villagers on whose former land the mine sits; though according to management most of these issues have since been settled.

Yet Barapukuria provides over 1000 jobs at the mine and a further 300 plus for Chinese workers; and it provides much needed coal for the country, most of which is used in electricity generation at the nearby power plant. Of national significance, not only does Barapukuria restrict the need for imports but due to its low-sulphur content the local rock is less polluting in power generation than the most-common, Indian, substitute.

From the surface, the first level of the mine is 293 metres down, sitting at 260 metres below sea level. From there, 1.5 kilometres of roadway and train track tunnels slope to a final depth of 430 metres below sea level.

Father-of-two Md Atiur Rahman, 30, from Mashpur, a village one kilometre from the mine, takes the lift down into the mine every workday. He’s been with the mine for nine years. “I had no work before,” he says, “We only have one bigha of land so life was hard.”

Local miner, Md. Atiur Rahman.

Underground, Rahman is responsible for constructing the beams and legs of wood along the tunnel that provide safety support. It’s a risky position because the new sections of tunnel are often hot and hold the greatest chance of roof cave-in.

Due to the risks his wife wants him to find another job, and there was a time when Rahman was scared underground, with fears of falling in the dark. But with years of experience “there is no time for fear,” he says, and although it’s hard work the mine enables him to manage his family’s finances.

Local miners attract a monthly salary of 9000 taka with 20 kilograms of rice grain and bonuses. There are four six-hour shifts per day.

The lift into the mine.

Rahman’s colleague Kabirul Islam, 33, has been working at the mine for eight years. “I like it when we get through our work quickly,” he says. The miners are given a task for each shift and if they complete it in three to four hours rather than six they return to the surface early.

He’s not scared anymore – the fear gradually left him in his first few months. But still, when leaving home of a morning he does sometimes wonder if he will ever see it again.

In 2009 seventeen miners were trapped by a cave in and one Ranjeet Chandra Roy died. “Those working at the coalface have the biggest risk,” says Islam.

Miner Kabirul Islam, after finishing a shift underground.

Miners in the lift.

Shift over.

Coal train engine.

Miners at the end of a shift.

Miners pose for the camera.

About cooperating with his Chinese colleagues, Islam says local miners have learnt to understand some Mandarin. “Kem cha means ‘train’,” says Islam. The word for train in Mandarin is actually ‘hǔo chē’ but in a tunnel with the sounds of a coal mine going on and a train quite possibly approaching at the time of use, ‘kem cha’ undoubtedly suffices.

Mr. Li, 'Om', looking busy while we chat.

Like Mr. Zhang and most Chinese miners, Mr. Li, locally called by the nickname ‘Om,’ is from the city of Suzhou in Jiangsu Province. For five years he’s worked at Barapukuria and in very basic Bangla and English he praises the skill of some of the managers.

But he misses his native cuisine. “Some of the Chinese food here is good,” he says, “but the variety is limited.” To supplement, miners have taken to growing Chinese vegetables on land beside their quarters. As can be expected, Mr. Li misses his one-year-old daughter and family who he sees only on visits home every six months.

Life at Barapukuria is strenuous and not without risk. Yet despite the hardships Bangladeshi and Chinese miners manage to cooperate in bringing the underground wealth of Bangladesh to the surface and into use. “External forces are not issues,” says Mr. Zhang. “What matters is internal attitude, which can turn any challenge into an opportunity and bring good fortune. Good deeds make for happy endings.”

With thanks to Ms. Olivia Qu for interpreting from Mandarin.

Bangladeshi miners at Barapukuria.

Barapukuria landscape.

 

Chinese miners at Barapukuria.

 

Mine landscape.

As the canteen (not pictured above) serves Chinese fare...

 

...sometimes the Bangladeshi office staff prefer the tea shop. And who could blame them?