Al Jazeera: A Symphony of Life
Al Jazeera: A Symphony of Life Nicolas Haque | Al Jazeera English Correspondent – Senegal
In the north of Bangladesh, on the Brahmaputra River, is a barge brought over by a Frenchman who goes by the name of Yves. In 1994, he sailed it from France to Bangladesh and it has been there ever since. He calls the vessel The Friendship. His wife, Runa, turned it into a floating hospital where villagers can receive cataract surgery free of cost. Al Jazeera took me there in February 2008. A big channel interested in a small story from the country my parents are from. We flew to reach the boat. From above, the Brahmaputra, rich in sediments, traces a red line up to my ancestors’ home. A place I had never been. Where my grandfather had once been a school teacher. We landed on the water. The mighty Brahmaputra River finds its source in the Himalayas’ melting glaciers. Flowing from its source in Tibet, through India to Bangladesh, where during the monsoon season it can turn into a ferocious and hungry tide, before it gently embraces the Bay of Bengal. From ice to ocean. My heart melted as the heat enveloped my body as we stepped off the plane.
As far as the eye could see was water and sand, a lunar vista broken by what looked like an ant trail leading to a big red barge not unlike the ones I walked past on the Seine’s promenade in Paris as a child. The ant trail was in fact a queue of elderly people who had lost their vision to cataracts. They held the hands of children whose job was to guide them under the iridescent light of the midday sun. A lifetime in this light had left their eyes clouded, their sight blurred, unable to see their children or their own reflections in the mirror. With no hospitals, let alone doctors, in this remote region, some had been waiting for this surgery for years. I searched each passing face looking for a familiar gaze, wondering whether these elders had once had my grandfather as their teacher. Somehow, oblivious to their sightlessness, I thought that one of them might recognise me. As I looked at the elders for some sign of recognition, I didn’t notice the children looking back at us – with our camera equipment, we were an unusual sight. We boarded the barge and were met with a buzzing energy. It felt like being in a busy New York emergency room. The deck had been turned into an operating theatre. We filmed a doctor tickle a man’s eyeball with a metal device. Cataract surgery is simple, rapid, and life altering.
292
293
Made with FlippingBook Online newsletter