I had an email from a good friend of mine who teaches at Shrewsbury International School in Bangkok in my inbox this morning. He had seen the “SAS Responds” fund-raiding website, which I emailed to my friends last week, and wanted to let me know what his own school was doing to bring relief to the cyclone victims in Burma.

Shrewsbury has teamed up with a travel agency in Yangon that has been sending envoys of relief workers south into the delta to deliver supplies. The letter below is from an agency employee who recently returned from the delta:

People living in Town:
I talked to the local people in town and asked them why they could not help the victims. It seems they have lost all heart. The whole town was damage. In down town, beautiful old houses collapsed into pieces. I really don’t know how they are going to built it all up again. Everybody seems very poor even before the cyclone they had to try hard even for daily meals. I really have no idea how they are going to make new houses on top of nothing left. I saw people sitting in the half collapsed houses under the heavy rain. Some people’s houses are in good condition and seem good business but it seems they could not give much help to thousands of people. If they give to some the rest of the people will come and they just can’t handle this. So they close the doors.

People living in the villages and rice field.
I saw ruins of thatches and old bamboo in the rice fields. No men there as no land left. All was covered by water. Poor villagers were running after our trucks in desperate need of everything. Men, women, children are sitting each side of the road waiting for the donations. When they saw cars coming they just ran to us. Our truck driver had a hard time not to hit them. We had to advise them to line up to receive donations.

I saw sub-human levels of living. If it rains they get wet then when it is sunny again their clothes are dry again. They only have the clothes that they are wearing. We don’t have enough clothes to provide for all of them so they have to fight to get one old second hand T shirt. Dogs seem to know what was going on. They were also exciting to accompany their masters when receiving donation. Kids are just kids. They are amazing that they could still laugh. They waved to us, they smiled at us and ran after us with curiosity. When they received something they ran back to their parents full of joy!

We could not hold tears back when victims are praying and wishing best of luck to all the donors. We had to leave them behind with a heavy heart. This is about villagers we saw on our way.

People living in the refugee camp (monasteries, Pagoda, church, school compound):
We saw people living in monasteries, church, pagoda and schools. These people are homeless. Their properties are totally destroyed. Monks and churches provide them with food and shelter for a while. They don’t know how to start their life. We neither. The night we went there it was raining. When we met them in the morning we learnt that last night over 3000 people including monks had to stand all night long due heavy rain. If there is no rain they can sleep on the pagoda platform.
We donated rice bags, potatoe bags, bean bags to give them food. We asked all victims to come and sit to get small bags of rice, soap, instant noodles and potatoes to hold on to the situation till international aid comes (hopefully). We donated to more than 5000 people in the refugee camp and 2000 people on the way by hand to hand delivery. So that we make sure that they got it.

We were so glad that we could make it. It was very tiring and a risky trip but we leart more about life and to know how to value our own lives.

Thank you very much for your kindness and help

Kay Zin Tar (Ms.)

Clearly much relief is still needed for the helpless victims of the Burma cyclone. Please visit the SAS Myanmar Relief page to contribute to Shanghai American School’s efforts to help International Development Enterprises bring relief to the Irrawaddy Delta cyclone victims!