January 31st, 2008 (Thursday 7:00 a.m.)
Today Elio's Italian neighbours have provided food parcels for all the homes in Los Algodonas.
We loaded the food into the little car and Guiseppe's pick-up. The little car groaned all the way, especially going up the hill to Los Algodonas. The parcels were then loaded into the church where school is taught. (There will be no school this morning!).
It's 8:30 now, and we wait for the others to arrive to distribute the food. The food: rice, beans, oil, salami all packed into black plastic garbage bags about the size of a basketball.
Two days ago we walked around the village recording the numbers of the houses. Today we passed out numbers to all the homes (182). Then they brought the numbers to the church to receive the food parcels. There were some people in the church bringing out the bundles and several outside collecting numbers and acting as bouncers when things got exciting.
The trek around the village to visit all the homes with numbers is beyond description. There was John Huizinga, myself, Sandy and Professor Joseph (the teacher) followed by about 12 children and an assorted collection of villagers who wanted to make sure they were not missed. Between the screaming, yelling, hot sun, mud, and the smell - we managed as best we could. Numbering and revising the list as we went, not wanting to miss any, but then there were those who would try to get more numbers... As it stood, by noon the supply of food ran out with about 40 villagers to go (We bring back more tomorrow). By 1:00 p.m. we loaded up the car with 3 more patients for Dr. Bob and went off to work at the clinic.
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