5th July

This time we went as far as Late-Kyune, a village situated
just half an hour drive by boat from the river mouth; approximately
three and a half miles away from the sea, according to the villagers.
Against the wind and rising tide it took us a little more than two
hours to touch its bank, in addition to two and a half hour’s drive from
Yangon to Day-da-ye. Galloping on the sea waves, we saw the village humbly lying
amidst coconut trees and ” long posts ” which actually were coconut
trees, the crown of which have been chopped clean by the sharp blades of
Nargis.
” We owed our lives to these remaining coconut trees,” said U
Myint, 62 years old, who also survived on the coconut and its juice
for the first couples of day immediately after the cyclone.
Everything, my house, my possessions and all have gone but that is not
the worst. What’s really tragic is the loss of my wife, my
daughter, and my daughter-in-law. They thought it was safer to stay
in the wooden house of our friend in the village and there they
died together with five members of that family. My daughter, she is a
university student and it makes my heart ache to think of her,”
the elderly Nargis victim said.
The village has 152 house-holds and 100 students. 4 Pyis (32
containers of condensed milk) of rice, 1 Pyi (8 containers of
condensed milk), 30 tickles of cooking oil, and 2 bars of laundry soap
was the quota for each house-hold. For each student we distributed 6
note-books, a pencil, an eraser, and a ruler. Also snacks and candies
for the children. An amount of 20000 kyats was donated to the
presiding monk. It was the presiding monk’s wish that we set aside 5
bags of rise and a bag of bean for Kyone-ka-do, a village which is
Late-kyune’s neighbour. We really appreciate the villagers helping us
distributing the rice. Without their help it would have forced us to
return late as some of our volunteers weren’t able to come with us
owing to their tight schedule and we had to make do with those we had.
Looking around the village what we saw besides the tarpaulin
capped, make-shift huts were the few lucky cattels feeding themselves
on the grass grew on the fields left unploughed. No trace of
ploughing-machine whatsoever is seen. In the village, Nargis spared
only the monestry and seven structures the roofs of which were also
blown apart while the only primary school and a hundred more houses
were wiped clean except some traces to suggest where they use to be.
Out of six houses that survived the cyclone only two are of well-to-do
residence whereas the remaining four are more big huts than houses. “
That library was just finished and opened in the early summer and
destroyed before the season was out,” lamented the villager who showed
us around, pointing to a small wooden structure inclined backward
yawning to the sky. The location of the village, being near to the sea and far from the town, is one of the reasons the village receive few donors. On our way back, the villagers gave us lots of coconut juice as a present.

Nyi Zay Min