Daw Khin Mya’s nightmare of May 2nd: How a grandmother in Thin Gan Kone on Middle Island lived the cyclone

Esther Suchanek is working as a project assistant for Malteser International and currently writes a travel diary from the disaster region.

Today I met an elderly lady. I was very impressed by the story she told me. She lost her husband and her house during the cyclone. But she does not give up. I cannot forget her and though I decided to write down her story:

Daw Khin Mya (her name has been changed for this story)  is smiling while she’s telling her story. This happens frequently after people experienced something horrible; it is kind of a self-protection-mechanism to deal with the memories. Day Khin Mya will never forget her memories of the night of May 2, 2008, when cyclone Nargis hit the coast of Myanmar, killing ten thousands of people and destroying hundred thousands of homes.

"First came the wind," the 63-year old woman says. "A very strong wind with a deafening noise. Then came the water." Daw Khin Mya is sitting in what she has reconstructed of her former big wooden house on the banks of the river in Thin Gan Kone, a little city on Middle Island, in the western part of the Irrawaddy Delta in Myanmar. Now she is living in a little hut, repaired here and there with plastic sheets provided by humanitarian organizations.

Thin Gan Kone is divided into two parts by a river. During the cyclone, the bridge was destroyed, cutting off the southern part of the city to the somehow safer northern site, leaving the people in the south without many ways to get out. Daw Khin Mya lives in the southern part of the town. When she wanted to flee form the water, she realized that the bridge had broken and that she had to find another way out. Together with her husband and some neighbors, she took a small boat. The wind was still blowing at full speed and the water had gained strength persecuting them. When her husband tried to save other people from drowning, he fell in the water and could not make it back in the boat. He died in the floods. Shortly after, the boat fell over, leaving all passengers at the mercy of nature. Fortunately, all 16 passengers survived and found refuge in a storage house far away from their home village. At this point of the story, Daw Khin Mya pauses. She holds one of her grandchildren sitting on her lap, still smiling.

The next morning, when the storm had continued its way towards Yangon to then disperse, she came back to Thin Gan Kone. Everything she once owned was gone. With the help of her five children, she reconstructed her little hut. During her escape, she hurt her knee and she was also suffering from diarrhea. So she went to the health center in Thin Gan Kone. This center as well as further four other health centers on Middle Island are now being operated by Malteser International. But the physical pain Daw Khin Mya is feeling is not the worst – she also suffers from anxiety and depression. These wounds are not that easy to heal. Malteser International is therefore going to send lay-counselors to Middle Island to assist the people to cope with their experiences and memories.

But after all she has been through Daw Khin Mya does not give up on life. Her husband and she used to work in the fishery industry. And even though the water has taken everything she owned and her husband, she still wants to live close to the river and start fishing again. Daw Khin Mya walks through the streets of her village. She stops to talk to her neighbors who have all experienced similar tragedies that night of May 2, 2008. Then she turns to the little hut where her daughter and grandchildren live. Smiling, she waves me good-bye as she takes of her shoes to enter the small home.

Esther Suchanek

Myanmar Update: Health for the survivors in the camps for internally displaced people

Esther Suchanek is working as a project assistant for Malteser International and currently writes a travel diary from the disaster region.

We are now in Labutta, with around 20,000 inhabitants the biggest city in the Irrawaddy Delta. From here, the assistance after the cyclone started, this is where the people came from their destroyed villages and found refuge in the monasteries of the city. During the phase of emergency assistance directly after the storm, Malteser International distributed relief items like mosquito nets, blankets and hygiene articles to the affected people. Now, almost three months after the cyclone, the monasteries are empty again. But the people didn’t all go back to their villages. About 5,000 of them still live in three camps for internally displaced people around Labutta.

Today, we visit two of these camps where Malteser International is operating a health center. The first camp is quiet when we arrive. About 2,000 people who fled from the floods and the destruction live here. In no time, a crowd of children has gathered around us, they laugh, giggle, hide, wave. They do what children usually do. It is good to see this after the horrible experiences they went through. On the adults’ faces I can see the traces of the memories and the worries. At the end of July, they have to leave the camps and go back home. But for many of them, there is no home to go to; their huts and houses have been destroyed. They have lost everything and have no resources to start over again. They are scared that another storm might come soon. The memories of May 2nd are burnt in their memories.

A little boy comes to the health center, crying. He hurt is knee and is being taken care of. The doctor and the nurse of Malteser International tell us that in the beginning there were around 200 patients every day. Most of them came with diarrhea and respiratory infections or because of general weakness. There are way less patients now, about 60 each day. From the tent where the provisional health center is located, you can see the water tanks that Malteser International has constructed to provide clean drinking water for the people in the camp. This probably prevented and still prevents at least some diseases. Clean water is scarce in camps like this.

At our next stop, the atmosphere is different. This tent-city is bigger than the first one, about 3,000 people live here. In the entrance aisle of the camp, the tents of various relief organizations are located; one of them is the health center of Malteser International. When the people will leave the camp and the health center therefore will be closed, the medical staff of Malteser International will follow the people and provide medial assistance in their villages.

The doctors and nurses are all young, happy and motivated – this makes the depressing and hopeless atmosphere a little better. You can see the suffering in people’s faces. It’s impossible to take their horrible experiences away, but it’s possible to treat their physical wounds and to help them to be strong for the future. And this is what Malteser International is doing.

Esther Suchanek