A Feeding Center and The Dump

The first few children as they came into the feeding center

People rummaging for food at the dump

Today we took our guests to work in the feeding center at San Miguel. This is an extremely poor community. Children in the community are fed one meal a day at the feeding center. Without this meal, at least 50% of the children would have nothing to eat. This community has no running water and has to buy water with which to cook and do dishes. The water is stored in the church's baptistry and is hauled in as needed. Each meal is served for about fifty cents. The cost of the water and the cost of the propane for the stove are figured into this fifty cents.

We got to San Miguel in time to help prepare the meal. I chopped tomatoes. I also helped dish up the food, serve the children and wash the dishes. I knew I had to put small portions on the plates, and I was spooning what I thought were small portions. I was told they were too big. Two hundred kids came today to eat. I thought we were going to run out of food and the portions had to become even smaller. No one complained. They ate what they were served and were grateful.

Some of the little kids were so dirty. There is no place to take a shower. There is a rock down by the stream that was the community pila. One person would come wash their few clothes and then another would come and then another.

I am thankful I got to go to San Miguel and help in this feeding center today. I am thankful for this feeding center where these children are assured one hot meal each day.

From there, we went to eat. I could not each much, after leaving the feeding center. I just boxed my food and gave it to someone that was really hungry.

We drove out to the dump. The dump is a horrible place. The odor is awful. At least two hundred people live, yes live, at the dump. When the garbage trucks come in, these people rummage through this filthy, stinking, sometimes rotten garbage trying to find anything to eat. Rotten apples, banana peels, anything. They pull out plastic bottles or anything else they can find to recycle. Hundreds and hundreds of buzzards live there also scavenging for the same food these people are. Most of the people there had on clothes that were tattered and worn. That is not an adequate description at all. Iam positive this would be the only clothes they own. The shelters these people live in are also just what they can find and put together. They would offer essentially no protection from the wind and the cold. How they sleep at all, I do not know. There were little children there. Little children that should have been in school.

The dump is without a doubt the worst of the worst. It just doesn't get any worse than what I saw today. Marc and I are definitely working on a way to get those people fed once in a while.

This has been an emotionally draining day, in some ways harder than building houses. I will not forget what I saw today for a long time. I hope I don't ever forget. I need to be reminded of those that need to be served.

Terri

Terri