Nargis Library Recovery Newsletter #14, April 2010
At most she is maybe seven years old; her mother rushes after the little girl kicking up dust in her bee-line to the dozen blue tents sheltering 12’ X 8’ tables. Pyramids of books cascade right to the edges. Like a cat, she furiously sorts and selects, passing choices to her mom, who stuffs each book into a paper bag. The deal is compelling: as many as fit in the bag she can take home to read & trade with friends. Her mom donates 20,000 kyats [$20] for a large paper book bag; a smaller one is 10,000 kyats. Adults and older students arrive through the day, digging into the book piles, pulling out favorites, some filling orders from customers distant from Yangon. At another table I encounter Ma Thanegi, popular author & friend, stuffing her own bag with mystery and detective paperbacks; on a far table is a prominent economist loading his bag with biographies and social science books. What a free-for-all!
Corner of Ahlone & Baho Roads
Drs. Thant Thaw Kaung and May Moe New are managers of MBAPF, the non-profit arm of Myanmar Book Centre; they stage this week-long drama after each of our containers arrives. This week we raised 15 million kyats [$15,000] to buy thousands of Burmese texts and reference books for school libraries destroyed by Cyclone Nargis. This is our fifth book fair and they have polished the process. Anticipating our shipment of 50,000 children’s books, they e-mailed & posted notices to 6,000 customers earlier this month. Kids, parents, teachers, civil servantts, college students and book dealers come by the hundreds, often returning daily to search for new titles replenished overnight by the ten MBC staff who manage the tables and cash registers. They are svelt young men and women, wearing MBC’s fashionable uniforms of purple longyis.
I’m in Yangon again to visit delta library committees, as I did with Hector Rivas, Jack and Sue Simpson last October. 
This time Dave Richards, NLR Treasurer, is with me on his first trip to Myanmar. He is a major player in UNITUS, a NGO that supports microfinance projects in India and other Asian countries. He and his wife, Sharon, have funded significant operating costs this past year.
Up and writing at 5 AM, I’m excited by two meetings yesterday The first was with Save the Children executive director, Andrew Kirkwood. His organization is currently financed by 47 donors—both governmental and private—in Europe, the U.S., Australia and New Zealand. His resource/staff manager, Daw Mae Ohn, joined him and described their complicated operations throughout most of the country.
Halfway through our session U Aye Myint Than Htay, Education Director, joined to describe their Early Childhood Care and Development Centers [ECCDC’s]. These community centers are being created in villages and towns; already a hundred exist in Irrawaddy and Yangon Divisions and some have new libraries, but few have many books or trained staff. A Center is formed by a local management committee constituted of community elders and heads of local families who guarantee a revolving fund to match Save the Children’s three year funding & finance their ECCDC after external assistance is withdrawn; 4/5ths are self-sustaining.
Save The Children commenced operations in Burma to continue humanitarian and educational aid after US and EU sanctions began. They started as three separate organizations funded by US, UK and EU governments with some private support, eventually consolidating into one organization. Now one of the largest INGO in Myanmar; their multi-million dollar operation is known for integrity and effectiveness in working with local leaders.
Later we visited World Vision Myanmar, established years earlier and operating with budget and staff even larger than Save the Children’s. Both organizations have Memorandums of Understanding [MOUs] with key Ministries which gives them access to much of the country. WV “is a Christian, humanitarian organization working to create lasting change in the lives of children, families and communities living in poverty.”We visited Director James Taumbaum the day after our session with Andrew Kirkwood. He described their substantial staff and program in Bogalay Township, our destination this trip, and offered local staff as guides to distant villages that host Early Child Care Development Centers.
Dave Richards has a long family connection with WV, a link that proved exceedingly beneficial. Our trek down the Irrawaddy and across distant channels to villages wiped out by Nargis was possible only because of WV’s help. Their staff has the largest INGO presence in Bogalay Township, for that reason, if our respective boards approve, we will partner NLR and MBAPF into their Early Child Care Development Centers. Why re-invent the wheel? They need books, we need local infrastructure to help rebuild libraries.
We also expect guidance from Ashin Dhammapiya and the Sitagu Sayadaw as each has great authority among Burmese and have strong programs among delta village leaders. Details of our delta trip will follow tomorrow, as well as my second meeting with Ashin Dhammapiya.
After returning to the States in mid-April and teleconferencing with our seven NLR board members, I will comment further about Myanmar in this momentous election year, which some assess as a stalled flat-tire, and others see as a snowball rolling slowly downhill towards more freedom.
PART II
Last October the Simpsons, Hector Rivas, Thant and I visited Pyapon and Bogalay libraries as well as the sites of two destroyed village libraries upstream from Bogalay. Some of our books had already migrated to the town libraries through the efforts of MBAPF; so this time Dave and I focused on places without restored libraries, to learn what books villagers want as they rebuild.
We also met monks in a Bogalay monastery teaching English from basic texts supplied by the government. 
They also want our books. We learned it is no longer unusual for English teachers to be wearing saffron robes; though their lives are dedicated to a strict sangha code, they recognize the need to teach English to the children of families they serve. Throughout Myanmar the quality of public education has sharply declined, thus the pressure for private tutorials to supplement public schools.
The ten villages we visited each had Early Child Care Development Centers, which mean special efforts were extended by INGOs and the government to help them recover from the cyclone’s devastation. Some had only a few deaths in those 6-7 awful hours, others lost half their population. The trauma was increased in the days following the storm surge as many dead were swept into the retreating sea and sank, never to be seen again.
Dozens of INGOs and domestic organizations have blunted the agony of their loss with funding and materials to rebuild schools, drill tube wells, construct a narrow road through each village, which invariably straggles along the river channel. Life remains hand-to-mouth as farmers struggle with saline-laden fields which gradually regain fertility as rain leaches the salt, but now an explosion of rats and tiny land-crabs scorge the sprouting paddy. Their predators—owls and snakes—were destroyed by the storm and nature has yet to regain balance. Each season will bring improvements, but each day people struggle with survival, heavily dependent on external aid as they reconstruct frail woven bamboo houses with thatch roofs.
We saw little of the lethargy one would expect from communities so decimated, instead in each village elders and children gathered around in curiosity. 
Our host and World Vision community aides—Daw Thandar Aye and Thet Oo Maung—were warmly welcomed. Each time we explained our purpose in visiting, then the village head consulted with elders and led us to where their library had been; they quickly answered questions about what they would prefer if we offered books and construction materials to rebuild.
Dave and I compared notes later & found that each village has comparable costs in mind as to the value of their in-kind contribution in labor and land, and the cost of materials they need. The common bamboo/wood frame [like a small house] with thatch roof would run as little as $300, while a sturdier, durable brick and mortar structure, with shelving and battery/generator electricity will cost around $3000. 500 books will suffice, most in Burmese, but simpler English texts are also welcome to help kids learn their A, B, C’s.
We visited these villages that want rebuilt libraries, my spelling is problematic:
1] Bogalay Tin Aung Library–U Tin Kha, Librarian;
2] Maesali Ywa– 178 houses and 800 people, 5 died here plus 25 in Bogalay;
3] Htet Ywa– 350 houses and 1570 people, a couple died;
4] Than Ute Ywa – 147 houses, 500 people;
5] Kyi Binsu Ywa – 580 people;
6] Ei Ywa –100 houses, 425 people;
7] Pawein Ywa Tract [5 villages] – 1st has 151 houses with 802 people;
8] Aye Ywa – 44 houses, 330 people; several died
9] Dun Hle Ywa – 274 people left, 88 died in cyclone;
10] Thin Maung Chaung – 900 people now, 428 died in cyclone
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