Peter Klint

PROP ROOT

I visit myself in Bangladesh. This young mangrove country of pride and poetry. Founded in mountains and rivers, in mud and the blood of revolutions. It gives itself unwillingly. Dust and heat rises with people shuffling and pushing on into the sun. Rickshawdrivers have chicken soup in the shade. “I stopped dreaming” one says “cause my time is at its end” he then slurp into the ball and suck the bones dry.

This land is our conscience tugged away between a plane ride in and out. A land sinking into industri and pollution. Into the sea. Eroding away. And i fear my children will meet and disown these people all over again. In their own time on their own continent.
Im a white man watching my self for the first time through young bangla eyes. Through a homeless boy who all his life dreamt to befriend a caucasian. Here the rich and intellectuals fear the fundamentalists who in turn fear the gays enough to cut them down and into pieces. But it takes white skin to get attention.

The dirt seems foreign. Jungle turns white. Rivers turn black. Turns into sandy desserts for real estate and big money while the waters are rising. Like our parents before us I see a pending doom. Not from nuclear holocaust or a world at war but from this earth repelling us.
It seems closer here and more real than ever.

And then the night rolls in and the dust settles. The corruption and violence takes another form. A beautiful one. And I see this country for what it really is.