News from Myanmar

This is from a former classmate of mine from boarding school whose name, for security purposes, will not be mentioned. He/she is currently in Myanmar right now and will be giving us first hand updates on the situation there. He/she will be trying to go to the hard-hit region, however that may be difficult right now.

"Arriving in Yangon over a month after Nargis' fury, I was surprised to find the former capital city still in state of disarray, as the airplane circled over Yangon International's two shaky airstrips, I could easily see that huge trees had been blown over and uprooted throughout the city. The new lack of greenery laid an aerial view to parts of the city previously concealed. Many ramshackle houses and smaller buildings had clearly sustained damage from the storm with large sheets of corrugated iron roofing lying about. Upon landing, the airstrips were the busiest I've yet seen- with one other airplane arriving from Bangkok and a few UN helicopters furiously heading south, there are five or six in total I'm told. Once on the ground the randomness of the destruction became more evident, large mansions were obviously quite damaged with repair crews hanging from bamboo scaffolding, while scantily constructed teashops ten feet way are untouched. Small wooden Buddhist stupas stand tall next to massive ancient trees uprooted with branches broken and stripped entirely away.

You wouldn't believe it ...By some stroke of randomness I unintentionally arrived on Aung San Su Kyi's birthday, and from the taxi window i could see the streets were well guarded to prevent any dissent. As a result the traffic was nearly standstill being that some of the main roads were blockaded with barbed wire barriers. (The next day, I heard that indeed there were some happenings- but were dealt with quickly.) The peoples general attitude seems to be pretty glum as almost everyone in the city sustained some damage, and many have relatives further south- which is well known to have to taken the brunt of Nargis. Many have donated much to monasteries and local efforts, but now don't have adequate funds to fully repair their homes, so the reconstruction is a slow process. In the nicer areas of the city electricity and water have been restored, but in many areas that hasn't happened.

There are the odd crews of soldiers and groups cutting away at some of the larger trees and clearing rubble from the streets, so its nice to see the two working on the same cause for once...OK well thats all I have to say for now, as you may gathered all is safe here, and I am enjoying the fresh air after the grey bangkok smog and the hellish heat of Islamabad."