“The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we’d make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds- pretty standard really.”

This week’s post is brought to you by our most recent world tragedy.

Myanmar’s Cyclone (some of you may think of this country as Burma).

One of my “family” members is living in Yangon (some of you may think of this as Rangoon) right now. She works for a non-profit human services group, PSI. Carlie has been there since the fall, right about the time the Junta (or as she has termed them to prevent the censorship of her emails, “Lola”) started coming down on the most recent rash of protesting monks. I’m sure you can imagine how violent those damn protesting monks are…they’re crazy. Eh-hem.

Anyway - the political atmosphere in Myanmar is incredibly interesting, and Carlie’s emails have been received with insatiable curiosity in our house. As you can guess, journalistic presence in the area is spread pretty thin, VISAs are hard to obtain when you come from one of the “Enemies”. It’s been interesting hearing about all of this first hand from someone I trust. Especially since this is a country and a people that I would never have previously considered on a daily basis.

In any case. We were relieved to hear that Carlie surived the Cyclone and is safe, with water and food. She sent out this email today and I thought you may all like to hear her perspective on Ways We Can Help. She mention the reality of our government’s current foreign policy, here is a recent article in the NYTimes, that addresses the same topic. It seems that our US government is biting it’s own hand as it tries to feed those that need it.

From Carlie:

“friends and loved ones, thank you for your thoughtful messages of support.

if you have any interest in supporting aid efforts in the affected
regions of myanmar, i request you to do one of the following two
things -

OPTION 1- contact Medicins Sans Frontieres/Holland (also known as
AZG)*, and ask if you can donate directly to their Myanmar cyclone
relief funds. i encourage you to donate to AZG because they are
well-geared for emergency relief here on the ground. PSI is an amazing
organization, but what we specialize in is not disaster relief, there
is more of a chance of your funds going more directly to those people
whose images you see on tv. i know though that when people donate to
causes, they want their funds to really turn into a bowl of rice or a
cup of clean water. considering everything it takes to turn money into
a bowl of rice when you are dealing with something of this scale, that
is nearly impossible. as an example, PSI right now is just trying to
buy enough fuel to keep its generators running. overhead is a
justified reality of disaster relief, but of the many NGOs or UN
agencies you could give to in this situation, AZG is probably the best
equipped to turn your cash into something that will directly support
affected populations in a relatively timely manner.

PSI’s two primary concerns right now: 1-ensuring that all (350) staff
in the affected region have enough food and water to live, as well as
some cash to rebuild their homes, many of which have been destroyed.
2-mass producing as much water treatment solution as fast as possible.
it’s a simple dilute solution of bleach and water. it’s being bottled
in mass quantities and provided to the UN and any requesting NGOs for
them to distribute in existing networks. as busy as that sounds, many
of use are spending our days feeling pretty damn useless. it’s just so
big. yangon, though completely unrecognizable and overwhelmed by the
absence of electrity and running water, should fare okay. the delta
region will not. it is completely decimated, and extremely difficult
to reach.

OPTION 2- send a check to my parents address, they’ll tell me how much
i have to spend, and i’ll buy as much rice, oil, salt, and other basic
commodities to provide to shelters and orphanages here in yangon. this
is ad hoc, and i don’t have the capacity to do too much, but it’s a
way in which you can know your funds don’t have to navigate themselves
through complex funding mechanisms in order to reach the people. if i
find myself with more money than i can spend, i will simply donate it
to AZG/Myanmar.

a third option is to call your congressperson, or email the white
house, and tell them to tell george freaking bush to stop politicizing
the provision of aid to myanmar, that this isn’t about people being
free, it’s about them dying of cholera or typhoid in the next week.
and if you keep talking about a freaking warship that’s ready to
provide aid a few days from the coast, the myanmar government’s less
likely to accept your help and more likely to be concerned that you’re
going to invade to save the people of myanmar just like you saved the
iraqis.

as some of you’ve heard from my mom, i’m perfectly safe, i’m still
planning on being home in a few weeks, but yes, this is the direst of
dire situations i could have ever imagined. thank you all for your
thoughts, love and support. please feel free to forward this message
to anyone i may have left off the list. FYI it is extremely unlikely
i’ll be on email again more than once or twice before coming home.

all my love,
carlie “

* This is one of my own chosen charities - Doctor’s Without Borders. Carlie is mentioning the Holland Office specifically here. (website in English via Babblefish).