I met Kima hanging out in front of
the Strand Hotel. She first offered to sell me postcards and then offered to
take me across the river to the bamboo village where she lived. Well that
piqued my interest. So after a few more questions I decided, why not!! After a 15 minute ferry ride across the
Ayeyarwady River we negotiated a trishaw(bicycle taxi) ride and away we went.
The village was amazing. It is basically built in a swamp with all the houses made of bamboo and on
stilts. Each house has a precarious bamboo walkway connecting the tiny houses
to the road. Everywhere were children running around , women washing clothes,
men cutting bamboo and teenagers playing soccer.
Kima took me all around the
village, introducing me to her friends and giving me a brief history of the
area. The entire village was wiped out by Cyclone Nargis in 2008, one of the
worst cyclones to ever hit Myanmar. Over
77,000 people were killed, 56,000 people went missing, and over 2.5 million
people were left homeless. Kima’s father
was killed along with many other people in the village. She is now the sole
support for her family, taking care of her younger sister and brother as well
as her mother. She is 17.
After a walk through the village we
wound up at Kima’s house where I was invited in for some rice and fish. We had
to cross a 12 inch wide bamboo foot bridge from the road to her doorway, taking
off our shoes before we entered the tiny two room house. The entire house is
made from bamboo lashed together and is
surprisingly quite sturdy. Her family’s
entire possessions consisted of a few pots and pans, about 7 or 8 pieces of
clothing and a few chickens that they were very proud of. It certainly gives
you pause and makes you think about the things we take for granted, like
phones,TVs and even electricity….
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