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Report of Myanmar Team 3 (30th August to 4th September 2008)
By Sonia Angullia
Our trip to Myanmar
was an experience that I can, rest assured, say that each
and everyone of us six, would do all over again given
the chance.
Being Team 3 to Myanmar, gave us a rough idea of what
is to come. But, being the first team to the cyclone hit
Irrawaddy Delta left us with just our imaginations. This
however, did not discourage us the least bit. In fact,
it turned into our adventure.
I remember one of the first things we did as a new team
in Yangon was to have tea in a make shift coffee shop
by a traffic junction. We all sat in little green chairs
around a little table sipping our perfectly brewed tea.
The local pastors invited us to sit under an umbrella
that probably only shaded 4 of us due to the direction
of the mid afternoon scorching sun. There was on the menu,
a choice of sparkling Quench, for those who’d rather
cool themselves of with a cool glass-bottled soft drink.
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Tea in a make shift coffee shop by a traffic junction
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We split for church on the Sunday morning. Half of us went to
Andrew’s Orphanage, and the other to Tender Love Orphanage
where we would set up clinic later on in the day. We were greeted
by children running up to us with bouquets of local flowers
wrapped in floral paper and ribbons. As if that was not enough
to touch our hearts, I found myself fighting back the tears
when worship began with their heart filled song. For these Burmese,
hospitality is their specialty anytime, with humility and a
big heart.
Over the next 6 days, we as a team covered a common goal of
reaching out to the less fortunate in medical aid and in ministry.
This took place in 2 slums, 2 villages in the Delta, and even
just off a road around a corner. Clinic was either in a church
or an orphanage. Everyday was differently planned, a different
environment to work in, and a different challenge. It was truly
God’s gift to us, a team that only knew each other for
a day, to remain flexible in any circumstance. The sickest of
patients that we stumbled upon, were those that had the poorest
sanitation and water supply, in the slum areas. The water that
they bathe in is the same water that their waste is dumped in.
In total, it took us 9 hours to Bogale, a town in the Irrawaddy
Delta area. We managed, a 4 hour mini-van ride that not only
bumped but shook, a 5 hour boat ride that I could bet we were
going to tip over and a ten minute trishaw ride that had to
fit our team, 6 locals and boxes of medicines and supplies that
out numbered us, to get us to our guest house in Bogale. This
was part of the adventure. In our journey on boat, we passed
many wind swept houses and temples. It was often that we saw
houses tipping toward a common direction. Those were considered
fortunate, as some were just rubble.
Click for bigger image:
We set clinic up an hour later on the opposite side of the river
banks in a blue wooden church. We balanced, or tried to balance,
on a floating pair of coconut tree trunks to get from the self-made
jetty to the church. Many of us only made it halfway before
children ran over them to help us, saving us from a little swim.
We were glad to be a form of amusement for the locals, even
in such unexpected circumstances. Many of us were put to shame
later on as we witness an old lady crossing it without hesitation
on her own.
Again, it was different than what we had seen in the previous
days or by the looks of it from the view on the boat. Not only
was the trauma of the cyclone still very present in the village
settling inland, but in it’s people and children as well.
Some of the elderly folk had to be carried to clinic and carried
back home after by those who are also ill. A common ailment
many of the villages had were aches and pains, much of which
were diagnosed as stress by the doctor. Drawings by the children
when asked to draw their impression of the disaster will be
a memory that would stick for a long time, as that was the biggest
shock for me when I saw past the drawing into the facts. As
the cyclone blew away the generator, we found ourselves scrambling
for candles and torches as dusk fell and as the registration
and seeing of the doctor was still going on.
I found it hard to fit our 6 days into this page and this is
just my side of the story. Ask anyone of my team members, and
I am sure you’ll hear a different adventure from their
perspective. This is certainly not my last trip to Myanmar.
It is just the first. |
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