A Slice of Village Life

The controversy we've been following most closely is the one I mentioned about the nephew who arguably stole his aunt's soil using his political connections and then had his henchmen beat up his aunt and four other women with bamboo. Today we walked into the south side of Bangra and saw people digging a gaping hole in the ground. This strange sight piqued our curiousity, and we wandered over to see what was happening. As it turned out, the nephew, whose name is Rubel, was digging up another piece of land to make a fish pond. As we walked up to talk to him, a woman walked up yelling at him, and according to our translator, accused Rubel of digging up her land. She screamed "God will judge you," which Rubel responded to by saying, "We'll see about that." This predisposed us to not liking the guy, and we liked him less after talking to him and hearing him deny the whole matter while telling us about his political office that has no responsibilities, which suggests that he has been given power due to his birth in a prominent family. Our informants in the village said that he never actually bought the land he robbed the soil from and that everything he told us about the event was a lie. While talking to these people, Rubel's brother stood near us and seemed to be listening in. Fishy business. We are planning to go to the trial tomorrow morning to see how the matter is resolved, and how this guy plans to wriggle out of the hole he's dug himself, pun intended. Never a dull moment in rural Bangladesh.