Photos of this trip | more photos from this project

Report for relief Trip No. 8 conducted on Friday, May 23rd to Letkokkon area

It has been more than 20 days after the cyclone hit the city of Rangoon, and on the surface everything looks like it is going back to normal. However, in areas outside the city, such as Irrawaddy Division and Southern Rangoon division, people are still suffering greatly.  On Friday, May 23, Project Beyond Rangoon, with the help of many volunteers and donors, brought another relief convoy to villages along the road to the town of Letkokkon, in Southern Rangoon Division.  We left Rangoon at 0730 with two trucks and two SUV’s, along with 18 volunteers.  We passed through towns such as Kawhmu and Kungyangon, which have been receiving more relief supplies and assistance than the rural areas.  There are now no longer children and women on the streets begging for donations, but they may have been told them to go back to their homes and villages.  We fear that this will cut off their access to food and supplies that they were receiving from a lot of the private donors who would drive out from Rangoon.

As we passed into the rural areas past Kungyangon, we were disappointed to find out that after more than three weeks the villages along the way to Letkokkon still have not received any aid besides what we have provided on previous trips. The conditions of the road from Kungyangon to Letkokkon are still the same, but it gets even worse the closer you get to of Letkokkon. After four hours of driving we arrived at small village called Hmawbi.  We stopped to talk to the head monk – the same one who had helped us on our previous trips.  We first encountered him on Trip #6 walking back from Kungyangon where he had gone to plead for food for his people.  All he got was a small bottle of oil.  We ended up leaving supplies with him for his village.  When we returned on Trip #7 and were able to make it to villages further down the road, we found that he had shared the rice for his village with all the surrounding villages, which had received no aid and were starving.

Then we continued with our trip until we reached the village of Pi Taw Tar, where we provided enough rice to feed the whole village for at least 15 days, in addition to other supplies such as detergent, soaps, clothing, and beans. The leader seemed to be a little confused and surprised to see us, because they did not expect anybody to come to help them. Of course, after more than 2 weeks they had lost hope of help and were trying to continue with their regular routine although they have little left after the cyclone. They have lost most of their livestock, and many houses have been destroyed. They are trying to use the debris and remnants to build new homes.

At this point, it had been more than eight hours since we left Rangoon and the conditions of the road were starting to get worse. We had not gone past this point on previous trips because the road was washed out, but now it was repaired just enough that we could just barely pass. Further down, we encountered a group of people sitting along a small bridge. We thought at first that they were waiting for the bus. Then we realized that they were living on the bridge, since it was the highest point around and hadn’t been flooded.  The leader in charge of this village called Poe Laung told us that they were waiting for help. They used to be a village of 27 families with 30 houses, but now only four houses remained. They were staying close to the bridge waiting for help, but unfortunately nobody had been there before except the head monk of Hmawbi who had shared some sacks of rice and other supplies with them. Suddenly, this same monk appeared in front of us in a boat, on his way to help another more remote village. This monk is amazing and really cares about his people. Later on the way back we would run into him again, this time on a bicycle going to yet another village!, In any event, we gave pens, crayons and paper to the villagers of Poe Laung so they could sit down and began to draw their experiences from the cyclone. This served as both a therapeutic activity and something fun for their children. We have put some of the drawings on our Flickr site.

After this, we provided more supplies to two more villages which were also in bad condition, but nothing compared to the almost total loss for the villagers from Poe Laung. Later we reached a couple of towns near Letkokkon where we found the leaders carrying satellite phones. These towns were much bigger than the villages we had just visited and contained maybe three to four thousand people. Although they told us that they needed help, we were able to see that the government had been providing them with rice and other donations. Later we learned from some of the local residents that many people in these two villages were not happy with the distribution system, as the town leaders were not giving out supplies fairly. We did not provide them with any aid because (1) we did not have enough supplies for all of them and (2) we knew that in some way they are getting help from the Burmese government.

At this point it was almost 6:00 pm and we were just 10 miles from the main town of Letkokkon.  This area of road had just recently opened up and we could still see lots of cow carcasses and rice fields flooded with sea water. We stopped in a town with more than one thousand people waiting.  We couldn’t go any further without authorization, so we decided to head back to Yangon.  Our trucks at this point were half empty, but still carried at least 50 to 60 sacks or rice and many other supplies. We decided to go back to Hmawbi and leave all the rest of the supplies with the head monk, as we knew that he would distribute the supplies fairly to the  other villages in need. We finally got back to Rangoon around 11:30 p.m. that night.

Total relief items delivered on trip #8:

120 50-kilo bags of rice; 2 60-kilo bags of garlic; 2 60-bags of potatoes; 2 60-kilo bags of onions; 6 60-kilo sacks of beans; 150 1-litre bottles of oil; 160 kilos of dried fish; 300 bars of soap; 100 boxes of mosquito coils; 100 cans of tuna; 30 mosquito nets; 500 packages of dried noodles; 10 rain-catchers for fresh water; 30 tarps; 80 cans of condensed milk; 600 packages of coffee mix; 300 bottles of water; donated clothes and shoes; 400 packages of biscuits; 1 sack of ginger; 100 ponchos; 20 umbrellas; 100 lighters; cooking utensils; medical supplies (paracetamol, ORS, iodine, etc), 500 candles, 100 flashlights; paper, crayons, and markers; 300 blankets; 100 towels; half sack of fish paste powder (for seasoning)

Special thanks to Yangon International School (YIS) for donating most of the supplies for this trip.  We also appreciate the support of the U.S. Embassy community, both American staff and FSNs.

FUTURE PLANS:

We hope to continue providing help to villages like the one that we found on the bridge, as many still desperately need help just to survive. However, at some point, as conditions slowly stabilize in these areas, we would like to concentrate our resources into long term assistance, enabling these villagers to get back into their regular routine and reclaim their livelihoods.  Most of these villages have lost their main sources of income.  Almost all their water buffaloes have died and they have no way to plow the rice paddies now.  The rice paddies are inundated with salt water and there is no way to tell if they will even support a rice crop now.  We hope to gather more information about these villages and come up with a reconstruction/restoration project for them.  We will provide more information on this as we progress in the assessment and planning phase.

Thanks to all of you who have donated your time and money in helping our project.  We are very thankful for your support and it is making a difference. If you know anyone who would like to donate to our project, please have them contact beyondrangoonproject@yahoo.com for information on how to donate online or by mailing a check or wiring cash. We keep full accountability of all funds — so far one hundred percent have gone directly to relief operations with no overhead — and we can provide accounting records on request.