David Leuthold, chairman for Nargis Library, and Daw Ah Win from the donor group cut the ribbon for the new Thingangon library.
I have used this title before. Sue and I again went to Myanmar and visited a number of libraries supplied by Nargis Library Recovery as well as our first new library building. The building was opened in Thingangon which is very close to the southern end of the delta area, downriver from Pathein. The building is in a village of seven thousand on Middle Island, a large island in the delta. The library serves the entire island of about forty thousand people.
Pathein, Thingangon and Middle Island can all be found on Google maps, but both Thingangon and Middle Island shown there are not where we went. First find “Pathein, Ayeyarwady, Myanmar” then look due south and about two thirds of the way to the ocean you will see Labutta. Thingangon is in the Labutta township and is southwest of Labutta on that same finger of land.
After our boat delivered us to the pier, a few minutes walking through the village streets brought us to the new library. The second plaque above the door says “Donated by United Nations Women’s Guide of Vienna, Myanmar Book Aid and Preservation Foundation and Nargis Library Recovery.” The first of these three is a group of Women from Vienna who donated $8000 to us. This, along with local help for labor and some materials, covered the cost of the new building. Myanmar Book Aid is the Myanmar organization which is the counterpart to Nargis Library Recovery, which is a U.S. NGO.
Daw Ah Win, a native of the region and now a U.N. librarian in Vienna and member of the group who donated for the building, was traveling with us. We met with the local library board and had a ribbon cutting ceremony to officially open the building. You can read more details about this library here. Now that the building is built, we will do what we have been doing elsewhere in Myanmar, supply books for it.
Thingangon cyclone shelter.
Thingangon is one of the places where the government built a large cyclone shelter, so this area was hit by Nargis with considerable loss of life. The shelter is built on very sturdy columns so that flood waters can flow underneath while the people are protected on the second floor.
Some teachers at the school gate.
A boys classroom in the school.
The school library.
After visiting the shelter we went to the school that serves this and surrounding villages. It has three buildings for elementary, middle and high school. We visited some boys classrooms and got a good reception from the students. The library for these schools was housed in a couple of cabinets. For English I found about six copies of one book “Money for a Motorcycle”. We’ll have to get more books to this school as well.
Village power plant fired by burning rice husks.
Before leaving we visited the power plant that supplies electricity during the evening hours. This will allow our library to stay open until 10 PM.
We had a great visit. All of us, especially our four new people, returned with a better sense of the needs of the delta area and how the little we have done will be stretched to serve a large number of people.
