Sumi Akter was at a crossroads. She could either stay in her farming village in western Bangladesh where her husband couldn't find work or move five hours northeast to Dhaka, the country's capital. Moving meant leaving behind her extended family and the only place she'd known in her life. But staying meant economic peril for her and her two daughters.
Akter's hometown, Nasirpur, sits near the banks of the Kobadak River, which frequently swells with the ocean's tides, sending rushing water through farms and homes. As a child, Akter, who goes by the daak name Bethi, would watch as cyclones flattened Nasirpur's kutcha houses, made of mud and straw. Her father planted rice, jute, and vegetables on their modest plot of land only for the harvest to be washed away.
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