We are cooperating with
Helps International to provide special
stoves to families that need them. The stoves were purchased through a variety of
gifts from Canada. Two men came out to do a demo of the stove for interested families from our school and church. They put the stove together in front of us in about 15 minutes and then lit the stove and had some of the women make tortillas to show that it worked. They know what they are doing when they get the women to make the tortillas because the crowd was murmuring negatively about the stoves until they saw that it actually worked really well. The stoves use 70% less wood, keep smoke out of homes and keep fires off the floor (preventing burns to children).
I was in the market picking something up early yesterday morning. As I stood waiting for my change, a woman was swinging an axe over a big piece of meat on the top of a wooden stump in a booth to my left. The meat cut really well and a large piece of it fell on the floor. That's the cut she wrapped for the customer. Nice.
I visited 9 homes in San Antonio yesterday afternoon. I took photos of 15 children and gathered information on the children and their families. Some sad stuff, but first:
Zaak (31): What do you like to do?
Bryan (4): Poop.
Bryan's papa got a kick out of that. Bryan and his sister both have sores on their body. They look like badly infected boils with massive scabs.
Carmen (12) was abandoned by her mom 3 months ago. She lives with her aunt and 5 cousins. She has one set of clothing so her cousin shares her clothes with her. Carmen enjoys playing with field mice in her spare time. Carmen's aunt's husband died recently.
Aracely (4) and Adalberto (6) were abandoned by their papa leaving mama to care for them. He has another woman and other children in Tactic. The mama receives $30 a month from the papa. The mama used to raise a few chickens to sell, but they died of disease a few months ago. They have no bathroom because there is nowhere to hook up drainage.
The previous mama's sister is the other woman and has 3 kids with a man who is still with his first woman. The kids don't know their father.
This is Angel Ariel. He's 7 in grade 2. He has a scab on his left hand where he was bit by a dog. His father died 4 years ago and his mom works in another town serving food at a work camp where she earns $124 a month. She returns home once a week for one night. The six children (5, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14) live alone otherwise. Angel had a bad stomach ache last week so his siblings took him to the Health Centre in Tactic (8 kms away). There was no medicine available for him. He helps out at home by washing his own clothes and then hanging them on the neighbour's barbed wire fence. He wants to be a teacher and his brothers want to be a doctor and an accountant.
