Shortly after Cyclone Nargis hit the Irrawaddy delta of Burma May 2nd two travel organizations that Generosity in Action has worked with for a number of years asked if we could collect funds for them to distribute to help the local people. [As of 6/30 we anticipate that further funds will go to repbuilding schools in the area and for plowing equipment as described in later reports.] We were happy to do so. Below you will find segments from emails received from them. If you wish further information, please email me at duncan@GenerosityInAction.org

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This is page 9. To read earlier emails, click here.
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Received June 26th, This report is from Kyaw Soe - owner of Arcadia Travels in Rangoon

Dear One & All,
Thanks for all your support for our brothers and sisters. You are a friend in deed while we are in need. Your generosity for our country is well noted and I thank you all for everything on behalf of our people.
Best regards,

23 June 2008
Three 5/6 HP single-wheel tillers were purchased with funds raised by a friend in Singapore. The engine pulleys were luckily not changed due to a tiller mechanic I came across at the tiller showroom. If they changed it the engine revolution will be more than it was sync with its power. So the engine will run down quickly. Instead the belts included with the engines in the box are not good and broken after a few days of use. So we had to buy belts at the industrial zone where the tiller machine company is located. The number of tiller purchased so far are (one 18 HP power tiller, ten 5/6 HP single-wheel tillers, four 5/6 HP cultivating roller boats).

24 June 2008
A friend and I tried to solicit diesel fuel for our machine even though we have some at the base in the village. At the end of the day ended up collecting 51 gallons of diesel fuel altogether. We also met a rice expert in the evening who is an acquaintance of my friend.

The expert and his wife are such eager beavers about rice so that they were asked only once to join the next day trip to the village and already agreed by canceling their schedule. They have been busy setting up a new rice seed drying plant in the north of Mandalay city with the technique which he learned in Vietnam with the help of Vietnamese expert. They just got back from Mandalay and they were thinking of going to the delta area for a scouting to introduce planting rice with new techniques. Such a coincidence and we were luck to have met him.

25 June 2008
I woke up at 4:45 to pick up my friend and the rice expert couple. They wanted to come with their own wagon for they need to continue their trip to the north of Yangon. Our trip will be towards the southwest of Yangon. The boat was arranged at Kun-gyan-gon for them up ahead and the monk and his team ushered us into the village via the waterway the Ma-yan Chaung (Ma-yan Creek). After we have explained our plan for the village with intensive care system the expert started requesting to meet a few rice farmers and the seeds for germination.

I will use my own parlance on what I learned from their conversation.

In upper Burma they use transplantation method which is sowing the seed in small plot (0.5 acre) for the seedling for three to four weeks. Then they plucked the seedlings. Plow the land again and transplant the seedlings on the plowed land by giving a space of 10 inches from one plant to another for good growth. They can manage the necessary amount of water by canalling the water easily depending on the reservoirs and rivers nearby. Luckily they have little rain about 25 to 40 inches in Mandalay which allows the plants to have good sunlight for the good pollination and growth. This rice expert also never uses any chemical fertilizer which destroyed the land so much like feeding opium to a man. The next year after a single use of chemical fertilizer farmer needs to use more amount of chemical fertilizer. Instead he would create natural fertilizer of his own and use it which really results in good and tasty rice ultimately.

On the delta they use sowing system which is to let the plants grow until they harvest due to a lot of rain we have. It varies 90 to 120 inches per annum. So they can't control the amount of rain on some lands which are not near enough to a creek to drainage the water surplus on the land. The sun also does not always shine. Due to that the farmers tried to sow as many seeds they could to grow as many plants it could be. The weeding is another problem. The weed grows quickly in this lower part of Burma quickly because of rain. So the farmers can't weed most of it properly. What they think is if they can let many plants grow the plants will not give much space for the weed to grow but the plants itself becomes weed for the each other which hampers the growth of rice and the scanty soil nourishment because of the over population of plants.

Normally they have to sow at least 60 lbs of seeds to cover an acre of land and only less than half of which germinate. Not a single farmer bothers why they it happened. Here at this village area the production per acre is 4320 lbs while the standard production should be 8000 lbs approximately. One farmer said this figure even is the best for their area for the last three years. The expert said with his own dried germination seed with technique he learned from Japan a farmer needs to sow only 10 lbs of max seed per acre yields more than 11000 lbs per acre in areas near Mandalay. No matter how much the cost is the farmers requested him the germination seeds for the next year.

After meeting with farmers and observing the lands some farmers are plowing with our tillers we came back to base in the instant pouring of heavy rain. Even though we have tiny umbrellas the rain wet us all. We had to change dried clothes of some of our volunteer members at the base. After lunch the expert started talking about the plan he has in mind. He will try to introduce the technique here. For that he needs a land area of 10 acres which are not with water sitting there all the time after the rain poured. Among the few farmers there they were pointing to one another and most those suggested were not a proper place and not close enough to the base. Finally a man who had lost three of his 8 water buffaloes in the storm gave in his land. He sold 2 buffaloes for 400 USD and borrowed some more money to purchase a cultivating roller boats because half of his lands are at a good high place for cultivation and the other half is at a lower point where the rain water sits forever. He needs the cultivating roller boat for cultivating in the water on his wet lands. The other three buffaloes he still has are one kid and two apprentice which don't know how to work in the farms properly yet.

The expert promised him to exceed the production well over they have in average. We will have to keep tab on every labor we put in until the rice is husked with the current prices in the farming business for plowing, the cost of diesel, the labor cost, and the cost of the germination seed and so forth so that we can finally balance to get to know how much profit it makes. All of us are really excited about it.

26 June 2008
The expert called my friend from the country to send two of his farmers to come down to Yangon in a few days. They know the farmers they sent and the farmers at the village will get along well with each other according to their experiences. One of the top aides to the expert has scheduled to give a lecture on the new system they are going to introduce on 6 July at the village. The expert also has in mind for using the labor of 9 and 10 grade students from the school in the weekends as on job trainings while giving them lectures on the farm so that they will spread the technique quickly in the area to attract others to follow. My friend in Singapore allowed me to pick up his GPS (Lowrance GlobalNav 212) at his place so that I will be able to let you know where our tillers are located soon. I don't know how to use it but I have downloaded the operation instruction and I'm fiddling with it. I think the gadget is a fool-proof one! Another good news is my friend in Singapore has asked me to a contact tomorrow for getting more funds for buying a big 18 or 22 HP power-tiller.

Regarding the donations and relief work here at the moment we have to keep a very low profile without telling the villagers where the funds came from exactly. I did told on the night of the delivery of the first batch of tillers how I could have purchased tillers by explaining my clients who came here to Burma and visited the other major places with me fell in love with our country and people so much that they offered me the donation as soon as they heard about the cyclone without my encouragement. Unfortunately most of the farmers who were installing the tillers had never been to Bagan, Inle Lake and Mandalay. Now we are running this operation under the title of the monk who is initiated this project taking a base here. The monk is one of the well-known monks among devout Buddhists. So we are well protected by his name. We now don't tell villagers specifically about the funds except the fact that all come from friends who live here and abroad because the walls have ears. When it comes to foreign aids they always want to pounce on those by accusing the persons who are managing it as the ones who embezzle the funds. The key fact is they don't want to let the people know the foreign people do for the good of our people while they are up to no good.

After meeting with medical team at a meeting point this evening I received a call from a friend of my friend who knows a Thai couple who came here with Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) program for relief work. They were allowed to do reconstruction work in Kun-gyan-gon Township. This is their scouting trip. They need a person who knows the area and who can speak fluent English. So I let him pass my phone number to them. A while later they contacted me and we made an appointment at 7 a.m. tomorrow at their hotel for a day trip.

This is page 9. To read earlier emails, click here.
Click here to go to page 2. received May 19th and 20th
To go to page 3 received May 21st
To go to page 4 received May 23
To go to page 5 received May 27 and May 29
To go to page 6 received June 8-10
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