Recently, several Gitameit students accompanied a relief team to Daedaye, a town south of Yangon. Two monks from the area had come to Yangon and heard about Gitameit’s relief work. They came to the school and told the students about how the storm had affected their villages and what kinds of supplies were needed. Gitameit quickly put together a team of two students, two doctors, and another volunteer familiar with the area, and started the trip. (You can find out about the experiences of the Gitameit students, Tha Nge and Thit Ti, by reading their journal entries on this site.)

The trip to Daedaye was a success and very important, as some of the villages the students visited said that these were the first relief supplies they had received. On the 3 day trip, the team distributed aid to almost 6,000 people, mostly rice, oil, fish, salt, and plastic tarps to use for temporary roofing. The doctors also saw many patients and distributed medications.

A hopeful part of this trip is that, in terms of continued aid, the villagers were asking for things that can help make them self-sufficient. They generally have enough food to eat, and with the funds that Gitameit is sending will be able to repair their rice mill. They also requested funds to repair or buy new water tanks. Most of them were destroyed in the storm, but before the storm these villagers collected and used rainwater, so if they can get new tanks they will be able to do this once again.

Gitameit students and other volunteers, while continuing to supply emergency relief to places that still need it, are thinking about how to transition to long term redevelopment concerns. Villages like the ones around Daedaye are inspiring, as they are examples of ways that we can work with victims of the cyclone to help them become self-sufficient and restore their livelihoods as quickly as possible.

Tha Nge - Gitameit student - May 13, 2008

At about 4 in the morning, Thila Min brought us to Aung Mingalar bus station by taxi. Before we left, we had to collect the rice bags from the store room; this took a lot of time. We took 40 bags of rice along with us. After loading all of this, we met with the team leader, Ko Htun, two doctors, and two monks from the area we were going. In addition to rice, we also brought cooking oil, clothing, salt, and tarps.

Before we even arrived at Hlaing Tharyar, we encountered many cars full of local people making donations. There was also a truck with a strange flag, maybe from Thailand. We also saw the car of X monk. On our way we saw many people, men, women, and children, all waiting for food. Some of the cars dropped food, clothes, and pots along the way for them. We also saw many houses alongside the road that were destroyed by the storm. The fields are still flooded. Not only the hti (top part of the pagoda) was gone, but also the middle parts of the pagoda as well. Before we got to Kaw Hmu, we saw only twenty tents, and Kaw Hmu city looks nothing like it did before. The road was very bad, so we had to drive very slowly.

At 12:30 we arrived at Kaw Hmu and had lunch. Since it was after noon, the two monks with us could not eat (monks take a vow not to eat after noon). We continued on to Kunkyangone. On the way we also ran into many local people giving out donations. On the way to Kunkyangone, the soldiers were setting up tents. A car from Asia World company was also giving out Water Guard.

We arrived at Kunkyangone harbor at 1:30. At that time, we were taken to Thabyu gone village by a few of those villagers and a monk. The villagers loaded the supplies we brought into the boat. These weren’t only Gitameit supplies, some of them came from other people. Finally, at 2:30 we sailed away from Kunkyangone.

On the way we saw so many dead bodies of animals and people in the water, and the numbers grew as we got closer to the village. We covered the supplies with tarp and sat on top of them in the boat because it was raining along the way. In some places, people were trying to rebuild their houses with coconut leaves. After we crossed the river, we saw some other group delivering supplies in a boat; they were all wearing the same t-shirts. These t-shirts all said “I love Sakura,” and Thit Ti took a picture of them. Then they took a picture of our group. This was the only other boat we saw. So we greeted each other by waving across the water.

At 3:30 we arrived in a small village and rested for a moment and one of the monks gave us a small snack. At 6pm we arrived at Thabyu Gone Village. There were so many people there waiting for us. When we got there, the villagers brought us to a local monastery and greeted us happily, since they found out in advance that we were coming. So they prepared a place for us to sleep.

One of the doctors with us treated a patient with a fever and the other gave medicine to some injured people. We didn’t find any patients with serious medical problems there, only cuts and scrapes and nail puncture wounds. The villagers know how to take care of health problems and had already used traditional medicine to help the sick people. They got a fever because of changes of temperature. We arrived there a little late, so some of the patients had already left.

They gave us coffee and snacks and then had dinner at 8:30. We had actually brought our own dinner because we weren’t sure if they would be able to provide it for us. At the monastery, over 2/3 of the roof had blown away, so we could see the moon and stars from our beds. And in the evening we continued chatting with the villagers. They told us that on May 3rd, the wind started at about 5pm. By 10:30pm the water level had started to rise. At midnight the big storm arrived. At that time, the water level went up about 20in. Some people ran to big houses where they thought it would be safe. Some people went to tie their boats down securely in the hope that they could stay in their boat. Some wrapped their arms around trees, this was the way that a few people survived.

At least three people from every family died, and it was mostly children who died. Out of about 500 families in the village, only about 50 or 100 are left. Not only people, but also animals died. When people went to look for their family members after the storm, they found many dead bodies near the shore. It was hard to identify individuals and eventually just had to send the bodies out into the water. Some people are still missing and their bodies have not yet been identified. We were amazed that even under these conditions they had already started trying to rebuild their houses. They were using coconut leaves and other things that they could find in the area. After 2 days there were many bodies and at first they tried to burn the bodies but later could only just drag them to the water. They used to get their water by collecting rain water and storing it in tanks and a reservoir, but these locations were both contaminated by saltwater because of the storm. They had 30 tanks before but now only have 3 tanks left, since they weren’t iron tanks but just clay pots, they were destroyed in the storm.

The most disappointing thing is that, because of all the flooding with sea water, they know that they won’t be able to grow any rice for the rest of the year. The barriers on the riverbanks broke and all the sea water came in. They don’t know when they’ll be able to grow rice paddy again. Thit Ti and I went to sleep and the doctors who came along with us stayed up to have tea with the villagers. It rained the whole night.

At about 5:30, the monks got water ready for washing and made coffee for us. The doctors saw more patients and gave them medicine. They also taught basic medical techniques and health tips to two villager who have degrees. In the meantime, Htun and the monks delivered food supplies to all of the villagers, finishing around 10:30am so we could all have lunch together. The doctors got the names of the villagers who haven’t yet received treatment and we asked them what they would need in order to be able to rebuild their village. After lunch we took pictures for our records, walked around the village and went to the dock. Most of the villagers came out to see us off.

About a half hour after we left the village it started to rain again. We could see that every time the water level raised when it rained more, the dead bodies would float up again to the banks of the river. We had to deal with some heavy waves and we were all scared and cold from the rain. We reached Kunkyangone at about 3:30 and got in the monk’s car that was waiting for us there. Luckily, there we drank some coffee to warm us up. It rained heavily the whole way.

From what we could see, the villages around Kunkyangone have enough supplies. But the places that are difficult to reach by car definitely don’t have enough. Even though they don’t have enough, the villagers still have a strong will to survive. From our inquiries we discovered that some of them have been starving for a week. According to the villagers, at night they saw an ominous red light coming towards them at about midnight the night of the storm. After the storm they saw a helicopter coming over them and tried to signal to get help. Fortunately the helicopter did drop them some food. But other than that we were the first donors who came to their village, and for this they were extremely grateful to us. We’d like to suggest that donors try to spend more time trying to reach these remote areas that aren’t easily accessible by car.