Made on Earth by Wolfgang Korn Read Free Book Online

gets faster and faster and louder and louder, tuk-tuk-tuk-tuk-tuk , shaking the driver, passengers and luggage before they’ve even started moving. Once the journey starts, they race through the streets, squeezing down even the narrowest roads that cars can’t go down. Although when the ground is flooded, they often get stuck in the mud. It can take two or three people to pull them free!
    Tuk-tuks have a canopy overhead and can carry between two and six people. If necessary, they also carry large loads of rice, newspapers or furniture. If you’re a lucky tuk-tuk driver, like Hassan, you might get to ferry some bideshi around. Foreigners are always willing to pay a lot more for fares than locals. Although whatever Hassan earns, most of it will have to be given away almost immediately. Like most tuk-tuk drivers, Hassan’s taxi was bought with loaned money. The private loan company adds 10 per cent interest to what he still owes them, every month! This is why Hassan has to accept every job that comes his way. The Europeans want to go to a mill on the outskirts of the city. One of them asks him to drive, “Straight there, as quickly as possible!” The request for speed is completely unnecessary. Hassan’s livelihood depends on the fact that he drives one of the fastest tuk-tuk’s in Dhaka.
    Tuk-tuks may only have three wheels, but they also have exceptionally loud horns. On the streets of Bangladesh, a vehicle’s horn is almost as important as its engine: the louder the better. Beep Beep! goes Hassan’s horn, telling pedestrians and other traffic to get out of the way, his tuk-tuk is coming through, and fast! A pleasant breeze takes the edge off the scorching heat, making the palm trees the tuk-tuk is driving past start to sway. The palm trees are growing in small gardens in front of rows of white painted houses. Are we still in Bangladesh? Yes. But Hassan’s tuk-tuk is speeding through one of the most affluent parts of Dhaka, known as Dhanmondi.
    Around 14 million people live in and around Dhaka. And at least half of them live in slums. Bangladesh is always portrayed the same way by the media, as a country suffering from floods, poor living conditions and hunger. But Bangladesh is also home to beaches, national parks, and mountains and forests where Bengal tigers can still be found. Not far from Dhanmondi, the view from the tuk-tuk is dramatically different: a sprawling slum with shoddily built factories lurking in the background like huge shadow puppets. Most of them are textile factories, as the region surrounding Dhaka specialises in textile production.
    Hassan is taking his European passengers to visit one of these factories. In fact, the bideshi are heading to the very same factory where our polyester yarn is being treated. A whole lorry load of yarn was transported from Chittagong to Dhaka four days ago, to be turned into fleece material. Even though it’s daytime and the factory is vast, it’s dark and sticky inside the building. A rhythmic clicking and clacking sound fills the enormous production room, where a few workers move deftly between the mechanical looms. These vast machines work exactly like hand-operated looms: rows of threads are stretched lengthways and are alternately moved up and down so that a shuttle carrying a cross-thread can be pushed through. The woven threads are then combed to create small loops in the fabric, which are then trimmed, leaving multiple tiny, soft bristles. These bristles are then scoured in order to open up the fibres and make the fleece fluffy and soft. All the trapped air between the fibres works as an excellent insulator. When it’s finished, the newly produced fleece material is rolled up into 40 kilogram bolts.
    Forty-five minutes later, Hassan drops off his passengers at the factory. Usually he would charge the bideshi four or five times the standard fare, but unluckily for him, a guard at the factory takes care of all taxi payments and he knows exactly how much the