Terrible tragedy has a way of bringing people closer together.

Those whose lives have been destroyed by Cyclone Nargis cling to each other for comfort; sharing their suffering, their food, their water and helping each other slowly rebuild their homes and businesses.

For those working in the relief effort, it is also a chance to get to know one another, to be inspired by each other’s commitment and dedication and to share the knowledge needed for Myanmar to recover.

One Myanmar Government official meditates each night and tells of his deep love of Buddhism; another of his love of music.

For foreign experts, it is a chance to visit a new country, learn a new culture and try new food.

For everyone - Government official and foreigner - it is impossible not to be moved by the plight of the cyclone survivors and their courage as they face a new day.

This team has been brought together to assess the damage and loss to agriculture. In each town, each village, it is the same story - a story of how livelihoods have been shattered and the worry about how proud farmers will now feed their families.

We leave Yangon, which has largely recovered, for our field trip.  On the outskirts of the town, the roads narrow, the houses begin to resemble shanties and the damage becomes much more obvious.

The faces of this fascinating country flash by the car window. Some dark, some fair, some tall and slim, others short and stocky; this is a big and diverse country. Women daub their faces with a yellow lotion made from the Thanatkha tree barks, and young saffron-robed monks gather on street corners.

Everywhere, there is activity. The cyclone-damaged shops are open for business; fruit hawkers line the road and workmen busy themselves repairing smashed houses. Where help has been slow in arriving, the locals have made do with whatever they can find.

Some still find time to smile. Despite having lost almost everything, one man laughs as he tells me he had to sell his wife’s jewellery to help rebuild his poultry farm. 

The town of Kyauktan, less than an hour from Yangon, is nowhere near as affected as other parts of Myanmar. 1,500 people were killed in the cyclone – the local survivors say they were lucky; their time to die has not yet come.

In this rich farming land, they grow rice, tomatoes and eggplant. Luckily, much of the harvest had already been reaped but local farmers have lost much valuable seed which will cut into next season’s crop.

We visited a crab farm where hundreds of thousands of crabs were lost. The people who work here are very poor. Meals, breakfast, lunch and dinner consists of little more than rice and what fish they catch.

Another official walks beside me. He tells me he feels great sadness when he sees people like this. Without their families, he says, life here would be meaningless. The things we may take for granted, he says, like movies, computers, television will never reach here. They are not part of that world, he says.

The official visited the worst affected parts of the country in the weeks after Nargis hit. He shakes his head as he tells me of the stories he heard, the things he saw – whole generations lost, he says.

The people here speak of Nargis not as a storm but almost as a supernatural force. They measure time now in before and after Nargis – life, I sense, will never be the same again.

For those in the assessment team, life also will never be the same. We have been enriched by the struggle and pride of the local people and the chance to share in our determination to work together to help this country on the road to recovery.