'We Have Nothing Else but Hope'

MYANMAR, May 19, 2008 — -- More than two weeks after a devastating cyclone hit Myanmar, the military government said today it would let medical teams from 10 Asian countries into the ravaged country.

The decision came after an emergency meeting of foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Singapore.

It was a significant concession for the junta, which has been slammed for refusing outside help for the millions of victims.

The development came on the same day the government called for a three-day mourning period for victims of Cyclone Nargis, which left an estimated 130,000 dead or missing after coming ashore May 2.

Tons of supplies are sitting offshore on a flotilla of ships from the United States, France and Great Britain, but the government has refused to let the cargo come ashore.

The country, however, is also considering a plan proposed this weekend that would allow tons of relief supplies from Western nations to be brought into the country.

Meanwhile, news from inside the suffering country is still hard to come by.

The following report was written for ABC News by one of the few aid workers inside Myanmar. For safety reasons, ABC News cannot identify the worker by name.

I am home now. It was a successful trip in terms of achieving what I set out to do, but it was heartbreaking and infuriating to witness the incompetence and unwillingness of the Myanmar government to help the victims.

I have gone into the edge of the delta twice; once myself with my relatives and once with my friends to whom I have given $2,000 plus $3,000 on the way. I have given $1,000 to another group. I must have spent about $1,000 buying food and medicine, giving cash to the camps and to people and on transportation costs.

During my first trip, I stopped at three camps: one at a meditation center, one at a church and one at a monastery. They are in different villages in a town in Yangon Division near the delta.

No one died in these towns during the cyclone but two people died afterward from pneumonia and four are still missing.

Houses were destroyed but most people have managed to rebuild their huts without any help. However, people who stayed at the camps lived out in the paddy fields where water has still not subsided enough for them to rebuild their houses.

Although most people will be able to rebuild their huts in the paddy fields once the water is gone, they will need some form of roof.

When we were there, they still hadn't received any help from the government. This was eight days after the cyclone. People from the villages were feeding the victims.

Many of the people I spoke to lost family members; they themselves survived by running toward the forest, which is on higher ground.

In my last trip, we crossed the river and went into a village near Daydaye. Along the way, there were several checkpoints, one of which stopped us to make sure we didn't have any foreigners in our car.

We stopped in one town and listened to the people telling us what they got from the government -- half an egg, less than a meal worth of rice per household and three steel bowls for four villages. The people I spoke with did not take anything.

In the river, we saw about 10 corpses and several dead buffalos. The river was so smelly that we were constantly sniffing perfume and using tissues to breathe through.

That village lost at least half its population (around 1,000). So far, the government sent 16 bags of rice, which the villagers had to go and pick up from a town nearby.

One private donor arrived hours before we arrived and donated some rice and water. A monk we spoke to was in tears when he heard of our plans to deliver aid. We actually delivered more than we thought we could.

Others in my group tended to injuries and listened to survival stories. One mother, who held on to a coconut tree, found her 6-month-old baby floating in the water and picked him up. The child survived; in fact, the whole family survived.

We had two boat drivers and one of them lost six family members and the other one lost two.

We later joined the rest of the group who were delivering aid: rice, noodle, clothes, salt, medicine, plastic sheets, soap, pots and mugs. They were worried about us because of the heavy rain.

When we drove away, people were waving at us saying thank you. That's when I finally broke down and cried with my friend.

Compared to my trips to the delta, my trip to Hlaing Thar Yar was not bad.

That said, people were so poor and had nothing to rebuild their houses. The government gave them a small amount of potatoes, five candles and some oil and would probably call it enough for the first response.

In Yangon, the government was selling oil, rice, tin roofing sheets, wood and some other stuff at a pretty good discount for a fixed quantity. However, when people went to buy, they were always out of stock.

One of my friends saw vans carrying aid driving into military compounds when large trucks were driving toward the highway. Several people told me that there were strange biscuits (energy biscuits) being sold on several markets. One of my teachers went to search for them but did not find one.

When the rain and wind began to come, people began to get quite worried about a second cyclone. This resulted in us chopping down our coconut tree.

The whole city looked like a war zone because of fallen trees. The irony was that one of the richest areas in town, Golden valley, had several downed trees that were not cleared and blocked the roads while almost everywhere else I went, roads were cleared 10 days after.

Amid all the chaos, I saw many private vans driving toward the delta carrying aid. I also saw government trucks carrying stuff. I saw some U.N. vehicles as well.

When I went around town in Yangon, I spoke with several Burmese who were organizing some donations or delivering aid, some to different areas. I gave cash to one of them who was cooking rice and curries and carrying them across the river to feed people in the camps.

We have not lost hope. We hope that the government will realize the scale of the disaster and allow international help to reach the worst hit areas.

"We have nothing else but hope," my aunt said when I told her that hope is not a strategy.