Tea Break with Ianny

This morning, I struck a conversation with a guy from Burma who had helped me paint an office space some weeks ago.

His family is in Yangon which sat smack in Nargis’ path. Thankfully, he has managed to contact them, and they are fine. It seems communications has mostly been restored to the city.

Reaching elsewhere, however, is the challenge. The select few authorised relief agencies, World Vision to name one, are finding it difficult to send volunteers and supplies into devastated areas. Infrastructure constraints, compounded with Nargis’ immediate impact, could make the damage worse than what the 2004 tsunami did.

So it amazes me that while the citizens are busy surviving the ordeal and rebuilding their lives, Myanmar’s military government is busy pushing to go ahead with the constitutional referendum on 10 May. In US First Lady Laura Bush’s words, “… it would be very, very odd, I think, if they went ahead and held a referendum this Saturday..”.