We had no money or a way to work, so we did it ourselves.” On the last day we called two nephews to buy rope and dig big holes for the bamboo poles. “We made the shelter ourselves, the other women and I, my mother and sister-in-law. Building it in the first place took 14 days and injured her hands, she says, showing her palms. Kulsuma’s shelter seems sturdier than others, with rope tying down the roof and bamboo strengthening the walls. They live with other women in a row of shelters in Kutupalong camp. The pre-monsoon rain did not affect the home she shares with her daughter and mother after fleeing Rakhine without her husband, who she believes is dead. Single mother Kulsuma Khatun has been preparing. The rain turned access roads into mud ponds, a warning that bad conditions will deteriorate even further soon. A sudden dramatic downpour on 19 April 2018 washed through some bamboo and plastic shelters where more than 600,000 people from Rakhine, Myanmar, have sought shelter in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh.
