Oxfam’s Jane Beesley in Myanmar (Burma) recounts the astonishing stories of communities rebuilding their lives after Cyclone Nargis - one handful of rice at a time.
A small pink fluffy bunny has been slapping me in the face. It’s neither an illusion nor a dream: three of us are sitting in the back of a taxi, and the passenger windows are covered in cartoon characters and fluffy toys. It is surreal, though, because we’re in the Ayeyarwady delta region of Myanmar, where Cyclone Nargis wreaked devastation last May - leaving more than 130,000 people dead or missing, and affecting around 2.4 million people.
Today we’re visiting one of the communities that Oxfam provided humanitarian support to last summer. The support to farmers went especially well, a timely response enabling the village to have a ‘monsoon’ harvest late last year. I try to take a photograph of a pig - pig breeding is an other Oxfam supported activity so I’m keen to take a photograph - it sticks its snout on the end of my lens and henceforth is known as ‘the kissing pig.’
All through the day we hear incredible stories of survival, with vivid recollections of the day Nargis struck, and I’m constantly reminded of people’s amazing ability to keep their sense of humour. One man recalls hearing about the cyclone coming but, as they’d never experienced one before, going off to the paddy fields with some friends looking for fish. Everyone listening starts laughing: they know that he and his friends found more than a fish. Clinging onto bamboo, he survives the cyclone, but on his return to the village he doesn’t recognise it because all the trees and houses have gone.
Today the village has been rebuilt, including a bamboo and thatch library and a rice bank - where they’re storing rice for the lean time before the next harvest. This year is likely to be a tough one as people are still trying to rebuild their assets and livelihoods.
Walking through the village Mahn Htay Aung, head of the village emergency committee, tells me: “After Nargis we started to work together as a community.” I’m not surprised by his remark: after all, you hear similar comments all over the world.
Remembering that comment now, I’d like to go back and argue the point, because a couple of hours later, after we’ve enjoyed the warm hospitality and lunch with several members of the community, we’re chatting about life in the UK and life in the village when someone says: “we’ve a community fund here - we built a school. How easily this story could have been missed. Fortunately the conversation flows in that direction, ‘We wanted to build a school and decided to start saving fistfuls of rice. All the families agreed that every time they cooked they’d take a grab of rice and put it to one side.’ He stopped talking…I have to ask, ‘How long did it take?’ ‘It took 10 years but we built a school.’ came the reply.
A shiver goes down my spine…I look at my colleague Ehmwee and know she felt it too. The story doesn’t end there. He goes on, ‘The school was destroyed by Nargis, so we decided to start saving again…saving a grab of rice every time we cooked. That was 6 months ago.’ He stops again before adding, ‘The government is now building a school here but we’ll continue to save the rice for something else.’
So I would like to argue with Mahn Htay Aung… that if that’s not working together as a community I don’t know what is! Personally I’ve got a lot from this one simple story, but it’s also an amazing illustration that people do not wait for others to help them. People help themselves and each other and that should never be forgotten. But we can offer assistance. Right now people in the cyclone-affected areas of Myanmar are in need of continued support. Hopefully things don’t have to take ten years.
Cyclone Nargis: Oxfam’s response
Hi Jane,
March 20th, 2009 at 6:57 pmWow, this is a very strong and touching story. The illustrasion: saving a handful of rice everytime people cook, for ten years for a school is really touching my heart. This put me into reflection of what I have been doing…..
Hi Jane,
March 25th, 2009 at 11:57 amWow, this is a very strong and touching story. The illustrasion: saving a handful of rice everytime people cook, for ten years for a school is really touching my heart. This put me into reflection of what I have been doing…..