In cyclone-hit Myanmar, rain drenches children in roofless school

0 Comments | AFP, June, 2008

KAWHMU, Myanmar (AFP) — 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."

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