RANGOON — A short walk from the southern entrance of the Thiri Myaing railway station, bordered by middle-class apartment buildings and an international school for some of the country’s richest families, around 200 households eke out a modest existence in one of Rangoon’s countless slums.
Stray dogs wander along narrow paths strewn with garbage and around makeshift huts, raised a few feet off the ground to stop their floors from being inundated with dirty water and trash during the long rainy season. Toilets in the neighborhood flood every year, without exception. There are no connections to the city’s electrical grid, and only a handful of households can afford to use batteries and generators to light their homes at night.
Inhabitants of the Hlaing Township slum came from different corners of the country to Burma’s commercial hub in the hope of finding work. Many of the people here do not have fixed employment and depend on irregular day labor at the nearby markets, although residents say that among their number are construction workers and even some government employees.
Soe Khine, 40, a father of three school-aged children, migrated to Rangoon from Bago Division, where he could no longer afford to support his family. His home backs onto the bank of a brown stream choked with trash and debris. At the entrance is a bag of empty plastic bottles collected from the waterway. According to his wife, the family used to be able to sell the bottles for 10 kyats [US$0.01] apiece; the recyclers now offer no more than 5 kyats for every two bottles.
U Maung Maung Kyi, a 65-year-old migrant from Irrawaddy Division, says the land is owned by a government ministry, and each household in the slum is required to pay a remittance of 1500 kyats [US$1.45] per month.
The residents live in makeshift bamboo huts, covered in waterproof plastic sheets to keep out the torrential rain and scorching afternoon sun. Win Nyunt, a trishaw driver and father of five, told The Irrawaddy he was reluctant to spend money on building materials for a more durable structure, fearing that the government could evict the slum dwellers at short notice.
“It’s a squat. I am worried about having to move to a new environment where the conditions are different. We are like a tree by the side of a river,” he said.
