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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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Gitameit volunteers have been deeply involved in helping with cyclone relief efforts. Among other things, Gitameit thought of sending volunteers to some of the collection centers with paper and crayons, so children there could draw some of their Nargis experiences – the idea being that children in the United States would then send drawings and messages back to them.

The Burmese children’s drawings bear silently eloquent witness to the devastating experiences that they and their families went through during the cyclone and its immediate aftermath. Two American volunteers with school-age children have since collected drawings and messages from a number of elementary school children at two different schools in the San Francisco Bay Area. Burmese translations are being made of the messages the American children wrote with their drawings – messages that express caring, concern, and hope for the future. A selection of these drawings and messages will be posted here once they have been translated and scanned in.

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This bad road makes the village even more distant from the outside world. Along the road people are waiting for someone who will drive them somewhere. They had to leave their homes. There is no doubt, if they told you their story the cyclone would be the reason and I am sure you would be left speechless after hearing their story.

The village is located on the side of the Wah Ba Lout Thout river. The location is itself quite close to the sea. So the huge tidal wave came to the village and killed the helpless villagers at dark night on the 2nd of May. They will certainly not forget that fearful night.

After Nargis destroyed the village, a family who had lived in a big house could only rebuild a small hut with a plastic tarp. Those who had lived in huts became homeless. They have only received some plastic sheet from a private group - and that would be still nothing when it rains.

The village was so beautiful before the cyclone Nargis came the villagers said.

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Report for relief Trip #9 conducted on Saturday, 31 May to Kyonda area (Taw Chike Village)

Photos of trip #9

On this trip we used boats to reach villages that were inaccessible by road. We confirmed once again that the “official” aid effort is concentrated on large towns; little to no aid is getting to the more remote villages, even almost a month since the cyclone. People in these areas are at risk for starving to death. It is also getting more and more difficult for us to operate in this area, as the police try to keep out foreigners or even Burmese making private donations. Our final destination for this trip was Taw Chike village, located three hours by boat from the Kungyangon town on the island of Kyonda. However, we later found another nearby village called “The Seven Houses Village” that was in much worse shape.

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Gitameit Volunteer

Meditation center, Pagoda in Hlaing Thaya
I think our method of providing aid is effective only because the abbot supervised our activities. We should continue to visit this location in the future.

Shwe Pauk Kan
The refugee camp is not so far from the city. So the situation doesn’t seem so bad. I don’t think their spirits are down because aid works come regularly.

South Dagon
I think that all the refugees are depressed and miserable. I don’t see their situation improving soon. I am sad, fed up, and feel sympathy for these refugees.

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Good morning to you. I received 3750 water purifying tablets and some pills for indigestion and diarrhea from Gitameit. Thanks to everyone indeed! The trip was a success. Gitameit staff shared knowledge which is very important for the work we are doing now. They provided a set of questions to ask and study the situation of site.

This trip was different from our previous trips because we were able to collect important data. I also gained a better understanding of the lives of the people we are helping and what we need to support in the future.

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Thank you all for your hard work and willingness to circulate our Myanmar Relief efforts to your friends and family. The $1 million dollar goal is so near…. $710,000 has been achieved since we began on May 8th.

In a flash, what CW Asia Fund has accomplished since we returned home from SE Asia on May 8th. The last day for federal matching funds is June 14th!

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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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