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It’s rice planting season here in Myanmar and, two months after Cyclone Nargis, many of the more able-bodied survivors are experiencing a sense of urgency to get their rice crops started. If they can plant quickly, they have much better likelihood of reestablishing their homes and their lives, hopefully harvesting rice in 6 months rather than having to wait until December 2009. Unfortunately, many things still stand in their way.

Seed is an obvious need for almost all of the farmers in the delta. Survivors who are asked to prioritize what they need help with have recently been telling HOPE and other relief agencies that seed is up at the top of their lists. Seed will allow people to secure their own food supply, and many people are expressing a preference for help to grow their coming year’s food supply over many of the other types of aid that the UN and other organizations are now offering, including shelter and food aid.

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It’s time for an update from Myanmar. I’ve been discouraged to see the type of coverage coming out of CNN and BBC and others regarding relief efforts underway there. And despite the fact that I am in the US, I’m still in daily contact with our people in Yangon, and therefore may be able to continue to provide a better sense of some aspects of the realities of providing relief in Myanmar than you will get if I leave you to fend for yourselves with nothing but television news as your guide! So here goes…

Among the biggest challenges to relief efforts right now is the distribution issue. This is the impression being given by international news agencies, but the perspective they take in reporting it is different than mine. Let me back up and give you some history. Before the cyclone, there were quite a few international, non-UN development organizations, as well as some local development organizations, working in the Ayewaddy Delta. These organizations had field offices in many of the main towns and larger village areas and had built up working relationships with local authority structures and local community members. When the cyclone hit, these agencies and their staff remained in place. Their international staff may not have been allowed to go out to those field offices post-cyclone, but the local and international staff who were already there were able to remain. This was threatened for awhile, but in the end, their continued presence was successfully negotiated. Certainly the lack of ability to put additional people in those field offices and out into the surrounding communities was a problem, but there was a presence.

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May 15, 2008

You just never know when that 7th grade home sciences course is going to come in handy. Today my 32-year-old Sears Kenmore sewing machine and I embarked on a rainwater-collector prototype sewing project. We’re trying out different designs that are simple to set up once they get to the field. Yesterday, we had a group of church people, a senior monk, several HOPE staff and some miscellaneous friends of HOPE staff, all crammed into office area, gathered around a pile of tarp, brainstorming how to design water collection equipment for the situations they are currently aware of in the Delta. With a prototype in hand, we will quickly get someone else with more appropriate equipment to produce more of these rain collectors.

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May 14, 2008

If you listen to "Message for the Queen," from the "300" soundtrack, you will understand what my mood was for the past couple days. It started on Monday, with an early morning text message that Save the Children’s cargo plane of relief supplies was being impounded at the airport by the government, because the waybill said the recipient was "Save the Children" instead of "UN." Suddenly, some dam inside me broke, and I was at the mercy of a huge, roiling tide of despair and frustration. Then more and more bad news and scary rumors started piling up and all got the better of me. Fortunately, some of the worst rumors have turned out to be untrue, and good news has also been coming in.

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These are messages from May 11th & 12th from an Aid worker in Yangon:

May 11th

There’s a lot to write and I don’t know where to begin. Whatever I write, it isn’t enough to express this situation. Perhaps I should start by letting you know that supplies are slowly beginning to come into the country. Several countries and agencies have received clearance for their cargo planes of supplies to come into the country in the next few days. The only restriction being placed on distribution of some of those supplies is that someone from the government must accompany those doing the distribution. Depending on the availability of government staff to accompany distribution teams, there may be more supplies flowing to more people soon.

I’m sure many people here share my sense that we are in the right place at the right time, but find ourselves bound and gagged. Hopefully, this is about to change. We are also hearing that the most successful way to distribute supplies to the neediest areas is to go by boat. While the overall picture is not at all what we would wish in terms of ability to have access and distribute supplies, no one is giving up.

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