ENGLISH DEYEA NEWS

KAWHMU, Myanmar, June 15, 2008 (AFP) -

Schoolchildren in Manka Lane village had to study in a tent because their classroom was damaged. (Photo: Moe Aung Tin/ The Irrawaddy)

Teacher Hlang Thein gently admonishes a group of primary school children to carefully repeat the alphabet after her so they can wrap up the lesson before the heavy rains drench them again.

Hlang Thein, in her immaculate white teacher's blouse, is trying to bring some semblance of normality back to the children in her community.

Many remain traumatised after Cyclone Nargis flattened the impoverished farming village of Mawin, which is in Kawhmu township in a remote corner of the Irrawaddy Delta only accessible by a small motorized boat.

"But how can they not remember? We are studying in a house without a roof and walls and every time the rain comes, they get wet," Hlang Thein told AFP. "Our books and notepads are still damp."

The children sit on the wooden floor, and while some have managed to save their green and white uniforms when the cyclone struck in early May, many are wearing clothes donated by private relief agencies.

Hlang Thein said she has to be very patient with her pupils. Many of them do not want to study until the school house is rebuilt -- and that will take time.

Building materials are difficult to come by. All of the 275 houses clustered in this village were blown away, except Hlang Thein's. It is, however, heavily damaged, and only the wooden frame and floor were left behind.

It is here where she has decided to teach the children.

"I do not want them to miss any lessons, even under these conditions," she said.

The village's brick schoolhouse was destroyed by Nargis, and a broken blackboard and a tiny Buddha statue are the only reminders that the rubble was once classrooms.

None of the village's 100 registered primary school pupils were injured or killed "but their minds are stuck on Nargis," she said.

Myanmar's military rulers insisted that schools around Yangon open on schedule on June 2 after a long holiday, despite the cyclone that left 133,600 dead or missing, with 2.4 million people in need of food, shelter and medicine.

Schoolchildren in Manka Lane village had to study in a tent because their classroom was damaged. (Photo: Moe Aung Tin/ The Irrawaddy)

Schools in the hardest-hit regions of the delta were given another month to open, but UNICEF says 3,000 schools were wiped out by the cyclone. About 500,000 children have no classrooms at all.

In Mawin, village chief Zaw Win, 46, said little aid had arrived so far, blaming intermittent heavy rains which make it hard to navigate the narrow tributary that connects the hamlet to the nearest port upriver.

The tributary itself is still littered with debris, including uprooted, centuries-old birch trees and bloated animal carcasses.

"This is only accessible through the river. But only small motorized boats can get through," Zaw Win said. "And they are too small to carry loads of relief supplies or building materials."

He said the remaining food supplies will only be enough for 90 families, leaving 1,100 more families without any rations for the next few days.

The cyclone has also wreaked havoc on the fields, with the flood waters washing away what would have been a bountiful harvest in early May. Now it is between planting seasons, and while the fields are ripe for ploughing and there is enough irrigation, the rice seedlings have been spoiled.

"We have vast rice fields, but no rice to eat," Zaw Win said. "I am asking for donors to bring rice seedlings so we can again plant in the June-July season. Rice for cooking is also very essential."

"There is nothing left on the fields," he said, adding that government officials and medical personnel had visited once since the cyclone struck, but despite promising more rations have not returned.

Many of the other villages lying along the tributary are in the same condition. What once were houses are now just mounds of broken wood and debris.

Kitchen wares, trash and plastic containers line the shore and bamboo bridges that connected communities on both sides have not been repaired.

Thein's students meanwhile are distracted by a distant rumbling of thunder. The sky is dark, and she decides to call off lessons for the day.

"We will try to get them to sing nursery rhymes tomorrow," she said smiling, but with a concerned look in her eyes.