THE town of Bogale was bustling and colourful at the end of last month, but the reality of the six-month anniversary of cyclone Nargis in the Ayeyarwady delta was just a boat ride away.

A two-and-a-half-hour float downriver brought me to Shwe Pyi Aye, a village that lost half its inhabitants to the cyclone. When the storm hit, many of the residents took shelter in what were deemed to be the two strongest structures in the village: the school and the monastery.

Sixty people made it to the monastery. The 11-foot tidal surge reached the second level of the building and the wind tore the roof away, but the people huddled inside survived.

During my visit the monastery still stood in the middle of the village, like a beacon of strength and security in an unstable world. The roof consisted of tarpaulin sheets donated by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the precincts were kept clean. It had become the site of an important monthly ritual for villagers.

“We hold a ceremony at the monastery on the second day of every month as a remembrance for the deceased,” said villager Kyaw Lin. “We need alms to complete repairs of the building but right now nobody can give alms.”

The school building did not fare so well in the storm.

“The school collapsed on the people who sheltered there,” one villager told me when I visited a canvas tent set up by UNICEF as a temporary school, adjacent to the stark metal frames marking the old school’s location.

The tent now hosts classes for 110 children from grades 1 through 7.

According to the Department of Social Welfare, only 74 of the 1407 schools damaged in the delta have received funding to be rebuilt, although various agencies have supported the reopening of more than 2500 closed schools.

As for the rest of the village, residents said that every house was destroyed during the cyclone, every family lost at least one member and everyone lost their livelihoods.

It was a week before assistance arrived at Shwe Pyi Aye. Like thousands of others throughout the delta, they survived on coconut milk and soiled rice while they waited.

When government boats finally came to the village, it was to collect those who wanted to move to camps in the town of Bogale. Many of the women took up
the offer, joining the droves that filled Bogale’s schools and monasteries in the aftermath of the destruction.

I had visited Bogale before, only four days after cyclone Nargis. The town seemed colourless at the time, the people’s movements slow, as if they had not yet adjusted to life in the post-Nargis world.

But Bogale was different during my return visit in October. The camps had been dismantled and the vibrant town was filled with the sounds of reconstruction.

Shwe Pyi Aye had also changed in the previous six months, although the village still had a long way to go before life would return to normal for its residents.

“Things are much better than directly after the cyclone. There’s no comparison,” one resident told me.

The distance that villagers have travelled since the storm is typified by the story of 65-year-old U Kyin Maung. His eyes clouded over for a moment when he told he lost all eight of his family members on the night of May 2-3.

Since then he has rebuilt his house, which does double duty as a small shop that he was able to revive with a K40,000 grant from UNDP. He also said he is still getting food aid donated by the World Food Program (WFP) and distributed by World Vision.

U Kyin Maung is one of 114,102 people in 250 villages who have benefited from UNDP’s basic services package assistance, which has included grants for rebuilding destroyed houses, daily wages for community work and the establishment of self-reliance groups for women.

Depending on funding, UNDP hopes to expand the project to 500 more villages in the coming months. They also hope to restart their microfinance project, which could mean writing off as much as US$3 million in loans taken out by 50,000 borrowers living in cyclone-affected areas.

But one UNHCR worker said that many people are concerned about taking out loans at present because they cannot foresee being able to pay the money back anytime soon. In this situation, UNDP recognises that grants are more appropriate.

U Kyin Maung’s grant helped him take over the shop his adult child operated before the cyclone.

“Every week I invest my profits into expanding the business,” said U Kyin Maung. The shelves held bottles of orange soda, small packets of nuts, a few bottles of medicine, all brought by boat from Bogale. The most expensive item was K50.

He said he made about K500 a day, enough to survive on along with the food aid he received, but not enough to invest in improving the strength of his house in preparation for next year’s monsoon season.

Other residents of Shwe Pyi Aye said they were also concerned about water supplies. As in past years, natural supplies are expected to dwindle during the dry season from December to March. Normally, villagers overcome the shortfall by buying water from sellers.

“We also don’t know if the people who usually sell water from up the river will be able to bring water down to our village,” said one local resident.

And while many men have been able to find work as farmhands and day labourers, for women the story is often different.

Myo Myo, a widow who lives in Thet Kae Aaeik village, explained: “Men are paid as day labourers for the whole season, while women are only paid by the day.”
While many livelihood programs run by aid organisations are targeting the agricultural sector, this does not necessarily ensure that the most vulnerable people get adequate support, said Liz Pender, a UNFPA gender specialist.

“In times of desperation, it comes down to self-preservation. Socially, men are in positions where they can leave their children with their wives or daughters, so they will get preference for daily labour and do not have to worry about things like their physical safety,” she said. “They can leave the village to access work that is unavailable to women.”

“We are women. What else is there for us to do?” asked Su Mon, a widow who runs a shop along with a household that is now entirely made up of women.
“We are very grateful for everything that has been given to us. It’s just that we need to be able to stand up on our own now, and to do that we need some more help,” said another villager, Khin Suu.

NGOs and UN agencies seem all too aware of the gaps, an awareness that is manifested in calls for additional funding. UNDP has asked for more than $52 million for an early recovery program slated to last for 12 more months. So far it has received less than $20 million of this amount.

Other agencies face similar shortfalls. The UN’s Myanmar Flash Appeal 2008 has attracted only 55 percent of the needed funding, while a number of smaller NGOs are wondering whether they will be able to continue working once the emergency funding promised through January runs out.

Whether or not the money is actually there, the need for it will remain.