Seeing is believing
(This report is a personal account of an independent author who does not represent MBEAN.)
As a donor and a fund-raiser, I am always curious to see the outcomes of my humble effort and contributions with my own eyes. This desire pushed me to arrange a visit to one of the project areas assisted by the MBEAN, during my busy holiday in Myanmar. With kind help from the staff local and abroad, I managed to visit remote villages in Day-da-ye Township, which is part of the Ayarwadi Delta.
It was an early start on a Saturday morning from the ferry port at Pan-so-dan, Yangon. A coordinator from Yangon office accompanied me. There were about 300 passengers onboard; some got seats and the others hired small chairs across the deck. I noticed some life jackets packed in carrier bags hung on the front wall of the ferry. A quick observation informed me that the ratio of life jackets, at least within the visible range, and passengers was far less than 0.1. But who cared? The weather was nice and the sky was clear. After about 10 minutes, we got to the other side of Yangon River and took a shared taxi with 6 others in an old hatch-back towards Kun-gyan-gone. It is a small town between Yangon and Ayarwadi Divisions. There we stopped for breakfast and decided whether we would take a relatively bigger and stable boat or a small motorized one. The difference is that the bigger one has to rely more on the tide as it would not be able to get into small creeks when the water level is low whereas the smaller one can reach the inner areas making the itinerary and schedule more flexible. We chose the latter for its time efficiency.
The river was narrow at the beginning till we got to its mouth where we could see water across the horizon. It was so vast and the breeze was so fresh. The loud noise from the small motor interrupted our conversation at times. It took about 2 1/2 hours to get to the first stop, Htan Taw village. This is where the MBEAN successfully built a new school which was opened and handed over to the local Education Department only 5 weeks ago. Its bamboo gate was locked and we informed the Headmaster who lives locally. It was rather unfortunate that a trip during the week was not possible due to my personal circumstances. We deliberately chose not to inform the villagers in advance as we did not want to burden them with out-of-routine special arrangements for our visit.
