Diarist 35 has some similarities with Diarist 34. Both had husbands remitting from Singapore when we started tracking them but both of these jobs were lost. Both households invested in rebuilding their homes. But Diarist 35 (a Hindu living in the Hrishipara settlement) has had a less successful outcome than Diarist 34 (a Muslim living on the other side of the river). Diarist 35, who was 28 when we started in 2015, is younger than Diarist 34, and though her household owns farmland, they have only a third of an acre. Diarist 35, originally from Dhaka, was in school there up to grade 5, and her husband to grade 7.
They have a son and daughter, both in school, and a new baby. But it is other parts of their family that have proved difficult. Her husband is from Hrishipara and he and his 4 brothers had not yet divided up the homestead land that their father had owned. So when he and Diarist 35 decided they wanted to build on their 'share' of the land there were many complex family matters to cause obstacles. The story is told at some length in chapter 3 of the book Taking Shelter, edited by Patrick McCallister and Daniel Rozas (Practical Action, Rugby, 2020) where they are described using the name Panna (see pages 53 - 56). Another two of our Diarists, Diarists 13 and 39, also feature in the book.
In the spring of 2016 her husband returned on leave from Singapore for the first time and it was then that they started building work. The plan was a single-story structure containing a home for them and a shop to let. He went back to Singapore leaving her to manage the building work. A year later her son seriously injured his eye in an accident and caring for him, including finding funds for two operations, has been a major concern ever since.
Then misfortune struck when her husband lost his Singapore job in early 2018. This undermined his confidence and his prestige, complicated by disputes with his oldest brother over management of the family land. He took a menial job as a construction labourer. They sold some gold to raise funds and Diarist 35 found work as a cook/helper at the local hospital, then as a maidservant. But in early 2019 she had gold stolen from its hiding-place - buried in their garden. She started an expensive campaign, paying a soothsayer to find out the gold's location and to determine who stole it, and bribing the police to take action, but nothing comes of it. She says it was worth about 200,000 taka.
In July 2020 they got their first rent from the shop in the now partly-finished building, and they moved into rooms at the back of it. Diarist 35 became pregnant again and the baby arrived at the start of 2021. The child is sickly, is hospitalized in Dhaka, comes out and has been on medicine ever since.
In 2023 they are short of money just as they find themselves in a court case involving a land dispute.
As we see in chart 01, their big transactions happened during the first years when the husband was in Singapore. After that they struggled along, putting money into the building work as and when they could.
