Corina Samuel: “We’re getting ready to build again”

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 shock of finding her home gone.

“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; there was 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.

Photo: Contributor/IRIN

The home of Corina Samuel on the outskirts of the former Burmese capital, Yangon, was devastated by Cyclone Nargis, which ravaged much of southern Myanmar on 2 and 3 May, 2008

“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 had three fish ponds, and fruit trees and vegetables. We raised a few pigs, chickens and ducks. We don’t plant rice, but we mostly lived off our land. We sold our fish, and always shared 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."

lw/ds/cb/mw