Air Conditioning, Bowls of Water, and a Long Hose

All of the above objects were combined in unexpected ways last night.  I had got back at around 10:30pm from a Bangladeshi play (which told the heroic/tragic story of the murdered Bangladeshi Christian-Indigenous leader Alfred Soren).

My room was predictably sticking hot and I turned on the ancient air con unit, which grumbled to a start.  I had left the room and was just about to pop into the shower when I saw a flash of light and flames erupt from the geriatric unit.  Clad only in a towel, I ran around the house looking for a water receptacle - the best I could find was getting a setup involving plastic tub to transport the water to the room and a small ceramic bowl,  to dowse the fire in discrete upward throwing motions.  The flames were resilient though, and kept growing despite my heroic actions.  In between bailings I called the building manager Kamrul who eventually came with a more advanced piece of fire-fighting equipment - a thin black hose which he proceeded to attach the bathroom faucet.  By this time by some stroke of divine luck my repeated bailings seemed to have extinguished the visible fire, and Kamrul used the hose to soak the whole thing down thoroughly for good measure.  The sweet smell of incinerated plastic and melted electrical components lingered in the air in some kind of fragrant mocking way. 

Together with a supportive housemate Carla (who brought me some iced ribena after the ordeal), I requested over email that other Australian volunteers should be advised of the fire risks and adequate mitigation measures taken etc etc.  This is being currently taken care of, and hopefully the net outcome of the incident may be positive in reducing future fires, and risk to other volunteers.

However standing out on my balcony in the balmy July Dhaka night, I looked down on the shacks clustered around the building site next door.  It's estimated that between 25-30% of the Dhaka population live in slums, which are at continual risk of being set alight by faulty or unattended cooking stoves.  Standing on that balcony, feeling lucky to be unscathed,  I had the backing of the Australian Government to mitigate my risks, as well as my own relative affluence in this country.  But who was looking after the risks of the people who were down below?  It reminded me again how culturally, economically, and geographically relative the perception of 'risk' is.