IRIN
MYANMAR: Corina Samuel: "We're getting ready to build again"
20 June 2008


INSEIN, 20 June 2008 (IRIN) - Seven weeks after Cyclone Nargis pummelled 
southern Myanmar - leaving over 130,000 dead or missing and 2.4 million 
destitute - survivors are struggling to pick up the pieces. While most 
of the damage was in the country's southern Ayeyarwady Delta, even those 
in Yangon, the former Burmese capital, did not escape its wrath. In 
Insein, a suburb of the city, Corina Samuel, 43, told IRIN the horror of 
finding her home gone.

"When I saw the house I felt my soul had just left me. I was empty. It 
was a shock, a big shock, a disappointment, and then a bigger headache.

"But we were lucky. We weren't home when it happened. My two brothers 
were. The wind and the rain were terrible. The roof was torn off and the 
whole house semi-collapsed at about 2am. It was pitch dark. No 
electricity and everything was flying around in the dark. And then the 
rain poured in on everything in the house. And we lost it all - books, 
papers, appliances - everything.

"Yet no one was hurt so we were lucky.

"We had planned for some weeks to visit relatives in another part of the 
country, and so we were not far from Mandalay [Myanmar's second largest 
city] when I heard the news.

"Should I rebuild the house? Or should I tear down what's left and 
rebuild it? I felt so hopeless looking at the remains.

"We aren't farmers. And no, we don't live in the Ayeyarwady Delta. We 
live in Yangon, not far from the airport, and we live on high ground. 
Our extended family lives in two traditional wood and bamboo houses. 
Four years ago we put tin roofs on our houses, instead of the leaves we 
used before and which we had to change every two years. It cost a lot of 
money; over a year's family income. We live - I should say lived - 
comfortably, in a traditional wood and bamboo house.

"But now the roof and the house are not there - just a few posts. We are 
clearing away what's left of the house; we're getting ready to build 
again."

"We have three fish ponds, and fruit trees and vegetables. We raise a 
few pigs, chickens and ducks. We don't plant rice, but we mostly live 
off our land. We sell our fish, and always share with our neighbours. 
And we traded. We traded grass for milk and yoghurt from a neighbour.

"We lost our rice supplies in the storm, and could not cook. Neighbours 
brought us food. We had to go to the city to buy water to drink.

"I'm back in university now, 20 years after I graduated, but now with a 
five-year-old. She lost her teddy bears, dolls and other stuffed 
animals, her friends. But we were lucky. We were not here when the 
cyclone struck.


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Myanmar: Cyclone Nargis           www.cidi.org/incident/myanmar-08e