On my visit back home to Myanmar, I traveled with a team from International Development Enterprises (a GlobalGiving partner) to Dedeya, a village five hours by car from Yangon, the former capital. There, I sat with U Aung Soe and Daw Chi Chi, a young couple with a baby girl, in what was left of their thatched hut. “The baby hasn’t cried since the storm” Daw Chi Chi told me, “I think she is too scared. She fell in the water that night and we almost lost her” she said, tears slowly beginning to form behind her eyes (an unusual sight for most Burmese people). I learned that her family had put their entire life savings - equivalent to $200- in a small envelope beside a bamboo bed mat. The waves washed all the notes away. As Daw Chi Chi began to breastfeed her baby, she gently lifted up the infants head to reveal a deep cut on the back of her skull. “The waves and the wind stirred up everything in the house and a knife we use for cooking cut through her skin” she explained. My Burmese allowed me to understand her story but I was unable to form sentences back, I could only nod and listen. I finally mustered up, “I’m so sorry.”The father turned to me, “It is my fate. I paid for my sins that night.” I wanted to tell him he didn’t deserve this. That it was a horrible natural disaster that the government only made worse by not responding to their needs fast enough…nothing to do with what a person deserved.

Perhaps the only silver lining to this disaster is that the international community has been forced to turn its eyes to Myanmar: the situation is no longer a political catastrophe, it is a humanitarian tragedy. Although it’s taking some time, local and international NGO’s have been able to gain considerable access to hard-hit villages. GlobalGiving has done extensive research to find out which organizations have been able to get aid to the people who need it most. In the most immediate relief stages, some GG partners are addressing basic human needs by providing tarps used for roofing and clean water. The response from villagers has been tremendous- upon receiving a tarp, one lady smiled and said, “I’m going to sleep well tonight!” The cost of a roofing tarp is approximately $15 and a water basket used for clean water is about $20. For the thousands of cyclone survivors who lost everything, a dry place to sleep and clean water to drink are two necessities that have allowed people to finally smile again.

To help, visit www.globalgiving.com/myanmar.

Note: Names of villagers have been changed for their protection.

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Here are a few stories and observations from my most recent trip to Myanmar. I’m Katie, a new intern at GlobalGiving. I moved with my family from Los Angeles to Myanmar in 2003 and I’ve spent every summer and winter vacation back home since. This last visit, instead of karaoke(ing) with friends or sitting around at tea shops, I got a chance to help out with the cyclone relief efforts in some of the hardest hit areas of the delta.

Many of the accounts are the same: the water level rose at about four in the afternoon, the tides churning like an underwater earthquake. Then, darkness comes without even the light of the moon, bringing with it engulfing waves up to ten feet. Villagers in the delta flee to the sturdiest places they can find - the wooden house of a village leader, a monastery, or a tall dike in the rice patty fields. But for so many, they stand no chance. It is the perfect storm.

I’m not sure when or where it will all hit me. I am currently sitting on the eighteen hour flight back to the states after spending two and a half intensive weeks in Myanmar. I can’t even begin to process everything I’ve seen after cyclone Nargis devastated the country less than a month ago. More than the sight of dead bodies, flattened villages or destroyed crops, the stories I’ve heard have put a move on my heart so great, I found myself spending many interviews trying to hold back unearned tears as I listened to people speak so matter-of-factly about the realities of their extreme hardship.

I’ll never forget that trip to Pyat Pong, a village region deep in the Irrawaddy Delta. Corpses of men, women and children lie face down in the flooded rice fields or floating in the muddy waters of the river, still uncollected. “I was the only one in my family to survive” U Soe Myint, a 32 year old man from a nearby village, told me, as he sat hunched over on a log. “That night, the wind knocked over a tree outside my house and the trunk fell on my back” he continued with deadened emotion. As he slowly lifted the back of his tattered shirt, he said, “It’s broken now.”
“Are you in pain?” I immediately asked. He nodded.
“Have you seen a doctor?”
As his deep eyes looked up at me, I wished I hadn’t asked such a stupid question. It made me feel dizzy, the thought of this man sitting for a month with a broken back without any help.

Note: The names of villagers have been changed for their protection.

To be continued tomorrow.

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A friend writes from Myanmar:

This is the worst disaster I have ever been in. The situation in Yangon is growing more desperate everyday as there is no electricity or water and food is getting very scarce. Just today, a women on our street came to us with here three young children. Her mother had been killed in the cyclone and the children had not eaten in two days.

We have made it to the only location in Yangon with an email connection tonight (tuesday).
We are save and fine… but the situation here is very, very grim. Tremendous devastation.

We have staff in practically all of the affected areas and are desperately trying to find out the condition of about 40 that are still unaccounted for.

Relief isn’t what we do, but we are being pressed into it given the circumstances.
If Global Giving could join an appeal that would be very much appreciated.

Will write as soon again as soon as we can. Thanks again for your concern.

I and many others are going to help Myanmar for Mothers Day. Nothing would make our own mothers happier. If you want to join us, please click here and do what you can.

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