As I watch the delta unfold from my helicopter view, I have to pinch myself every so often to make sure I am not dreaming! Am I really catching a helicopter to work?? The wind blowing through my hair from the open windows of the old Russian 20-seater helicopter make me realize it is true!
Silver and brown ribbons thread their way through the patchwork of fields of muddy water, iridescent green rice paddies and gardens. The quilt below me is dotted with houses, groves of trees and the occasional golden sequin-like temple, irrigation channels acting as the thread tying it all together. The sun reflects on the mirror-like squares of brown and green-blue, catching shadows of the wisps of clouds that float, suspended between sky and earth, while ominous grey clouds lie on the horizon.
I am seated next to aid workers from World Vision and World Food Program. WFP still runs a semi-regular service between Yangon and Labutta, one of the centres of coordination after the cyclone. I am headed to Labutta, to work as an interim project manager on a water, health and sanitation project that ADRA is running in the delta region of Myanmar.
The colours and jigsaw of the patchwork below fascinate me: depending on the lighting (and probably bacteria levels!), the rivers sparkle silver, brown and green, a slither of rainbow serpents. Water ponds are like oval mirrors, some reminding me of tarnished silver with the green-bacteria splotches, others sparkling clear in the sunlight. There are squares connected to rectangles, dissected by zigzagging roads, while rivers and irrigation channels create abstract patterns of their own.
After over an hour of spectacular scenery, we start to descend, and I notice the scene below has changed somewhat, The rivers have widened significantly, creating feathering effects as land and water merge. A myriad palm trees dot the landscape below, and the brightness of the green below is almost blinding.
As I watch, the sky becomes grey and foggy. Almost within seconds, the scene below is invisible. The flight attendant quickly closes all the windows, not moments before sheets of blinding rain run rivers down the circles of glass. The helicopter rocks, and the atmosphere becomes slightly tense.
We are now shimmying 100 metres above the ground, and the grey water below is so wide, it is hard differentiate between rivers and the ocean. All of a sudden, it becomes obvious that we have reached the ocean, as white waves wash up on the sandy shores. We follow the coast line only seconds, before turning inland, and zoom over the bank of mangroves and palm trees. The bank flattens into a green waterlogged paddock, and we fly metres above the ground over a farmer plowing the ground with a bullock.
Moments later, we touch down on a helipad in the middle of a field, the copter blades creating waves of grass and water. This is Pyinsaluk, which probably the hardest hit region of the delta, being closest to the ocean. Less than 10% of the population survived the cyclone here.
Passengers unload, and we are off again, over the hill of green tropical foliage and palm trees, along the coast line, and north towards the next stop. Boats appear as tiny dots on the massive river, before disappearing in the sheets of rain that render visibility zero. Without fresh air, the copter has become warm, slightly stuffy, and smells of the engine. It shudders and shakes in the storm, and I am beginning to feel a little motion sick. We begin to descend again, and hover over another village. The golden stupa of a Buddhist temple appears, vividly gold through the grey sheets of rain.
The helicopter angles over the village, and my eyes bulge at the angle at which the palm trees still stand, a testament to the disaster they withstood. The sky cries at the scene below, creating ribbons of tears on the window. Many huts are still not rebuilt, protected from the monsoonal rain by blue and red tarps.
The blinding rain creates large splashes in the puddles as we hover, while the blades send sheets of water and grass shimmying away touch down again. The flight attendant motions for me to move sides, and I realize why as soon as I see the rain streaming in to where I was sitting as they open the door. He peers out through the rain, and beckons for invisible people. Moments later passengers appear, drenched from running through the torrential rain. More than a dozen stream in, creating puddles of water on the floor.
We take off again, and I pray the monsoonal rain will ease before I have to depart. I am so grateful I borrowed an umbrella from my guest house!!
We make one more stop, once again in the middle of a waterlogged field. The window reveals a sobering scene on the edge of the field, and my heart cries at the dozen or more graves lying in wait of the second coming. A lone child stands watching us.
I have to move again as passengers fill up the remaining seats, and piles of luggage fill any existing floor space between the seats.
As we touch down again in Labutta, I am so grateful that the rain has stopped! I wiggle into my backpack, and grab my violin in one hand and the oversized bag of food that I am giving as gifts to the staff in my other hand. It would have been even more awkward to juggle an umbrella too!
Off to the side of the field, dozens of green-and-white-uniformed school kids watch, reminding me of the days when the sound of the mission plane in PNG would send us kids in excitement to the airstrip. I pick my way through the wet grass to the path. I notice someone heading towards me, and am grateful that someone is here to meet me. I hand over my travel permit as the copter waits impatiently until we are off the path, and then hovers off, back towards Yangon, the ‘WFP, Humanitarian Air Services’ sign reminding me of my reason for being here, making it seem only slightly less surreal.
As we wheel our way to the ADRA office on motorbikes, I am once again grateful it is not raining. The typical scene of longyi-clad men sitting on tri-shaws, parasol-toting women holding the hands of tanaka-faced children and green and white uniformed tanaka faced school children stare in curiosity at me.
We arrive at the office, a smiling double-story building, and I am greeted with smiles by so many staff I almost feel overwhelmed. The bottom floor is a sea of laptops, a hive of activity. I am shown upstairs to my room that I will share with the gekkos. It is spacious, and airy with a table, chair and double bed sporting a pink mosquito-net canopy. I feel instantly comfortable.
And now, as rain buckets down outside, making me once again grateful for the timing of my arrival, I sit at a desk upstairs waiting for a meeting with the staff I will be working with on the project. Or maybe I should say projects, as my role has been extended to include overseeing a second project! I have no idea what is ahead, but I am way excited!!
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Friday passed in a blur of new faces, meetings and requests for help. I needn’t have worried that my inexperience would leave me uncertain of what to do. Apart from the initial anxiety I felt when meeting the staff, and their expectant faces making me wonder what on earth I was supposed to do and say, the path quickly became clearer with each meeting. As the staff shared their progress and concerns, I was amazed at the intricate detail required to put proposed projects into practice, and the attention to detail that each staff member exhibits. I was also intrigued (and relieved!!) to discover that so many of the skills I need for this job overlap with teaching, just in a different context.
By the end of the day, my head was so overloaded with information, new faces and all that I had experienced! Apart from a short lunch break, which was also ‘information overload’, I worked from the moment I walked through the door to after 5 pm! So the realization that I had Sabbath as a day of rest and mental catch-up was such a relief, especially realizing that many of the staff will be in working on Sunday, and I will also need to use some of the day to get my head around the new project.
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Saturday night – I sit in the second floor of my home in the office listening, between songs, to a chorus of frogs who are drowned out by the cacophony of Burmese karaoke that almost deafened me when it started up at 4:30, waking me from my afternoon nap. Given that it is almost 11:30pm and still going, I am grateful for that nap!
Today I walked to church, held in the boys dormitory that houses some of the ADRA staff. I am still amazed by so many things here: sights, sounds, smells. The illogicality of having a house sitting in the middle of a puddle of water, necessitating make-shift ‘bridges’, aka planks of wood. The stench of rubbish piles and sewerage that wafts by, added to by the workers digging out drains and piling rubbish on the roads – also illogical. The put-put-put of tractors that are basically the only form of motorized land transport apart from motorbikes, which also surprised me, given that motorbikes are basically banned in Yangon!
Lunch was simple Burmese food – gazunyuweh (greens) and rice, with chicken a dish that I picked around, shared with some of the other ADRA workers. Dinner was Chinese at another restaurant, also with ADRA staff. Breakfast has been bread with peanut butter and bananas, until the bread runs out!
And now the music has stopped, though the chorus of frogs is still croaking.. Gekkos are scurrying on the walls, and the security man is locking the blue dormer windows, making me realize it is time for bed.
So I shall sign off, send this tomorrow when the internet is connected, and update you later about my adventures in Labutta and beyond.
Take care, and God bless,
Chelle xxx
