Monday

I get to the office by 7.45 am. Monday is a day of meetings - which are usually interrupted by several requests to sign things - such as a cash request to deploy ten new staff to the Delta for the Myanmar Red Cross later on today.

Tuesday

I fly into Bogale Township with some colleagues from the British, Norwegian and Myanmar Red Cross. It's my first visit to this area, and from the air I can see strip after strip of tarpaulin temporary shelters. No one knows the extent of the human loss, but it's brought home to me when we finally arrive in a village to witness a distribution of relief items and I meet a man who tells me he is the only one left of his family. I am surrounded by a group of men, telling me their individual story of loss, 50 out of 70 members of an extended family in one case.

The villagers predict the harvest will be poor, and as the fisherman don't have any boats we need to move quickly to provide cash for work activities to enable people to have some resources to fall back on if the harvest isn't good.

Wednesday

Today I attend a relief workshop - we take stock of progress and also use the opportunity to thank staff and volunteers who have worked relentlessly to get family kits out to people in need.

The family kits we provide contain mosquito nets, blankets, a kitchen set, a hygiene kit, and the Federation's new emergency shelter kit, consisting of tarpaulin, rope and a toolkit.

I look at the faces of these staff, and the incredible volunteers who gave so much support to people in the early days of the response. Although they look tired, I am amazed at their enthusiasm. We still have a long way to go and need this positive attitude. I feel proud to be associated with them.

Thursday

I have a meeting this morning with our Water and Sanitation (Watsan) coordinator about the on coming dry season. I am reminded of a village I visited last month when I went to Labutta. The village leader had shown us the way they collect water, using tarpaulin down channels from the roofs into water storage containers. The pond in the village had been cleaned but it still contained too much salt. We have cleaned 61 ponds in total, but many of them fall into this category. So we have given out extra tarpaulin to communities to make large open collection receptacles. These are quick and easy to put up and can collect the remnants of water from the last few monsoon storms. Our plan is to position water treatment units to treat river water to provide drinking water. We will still have the challenge of distributing this to the variety of communities scattered through the delta, but working with other agencies, we think this is achievable.

We also plan to give chlorine and alum to people so that they can treat their water at home.

Friday

The health team are out in the field supporting the training of volunteers to be health promoters in their communities. All health volunteers learn first aid, community health promotion and disease prevention

We also address the psychosocial needs of the community. Volunteers have many stories of people who are so devastated by what has happened that they can't function properly. We can't help people who need specialist mental health support, but we can try to refer them on to people who can. However, what we can do is help the community take some time out from the pressures they are under, with drama, games for the children and laughter. We always try to do this with people from the communities, who traditionally provide support.

Saturday

I usually work at the weekends too - in the office on Saturday and Sundays at home. In the evenings I meet up with friends. It's a small world and some of us working in the operations know each other. Yangon is a beautiful city and it's always good to catch up with people over dinner in one of its restaurants. But never far away is the thought that so much more needs to be done.