Rice and shine
15 February 2010By Anne Larrass in Haiti.
“Ne bloquez pas, ne bloquez pas!” a CARE distribution coordinator calls out to the giggling crowd of women and girls who have been lining up since 5:30 a.m. to receive their rice.
With no easy way to carry the 50kg bags, women and girls are dropping them every few steps, laughing and shaking their heads at the comedy of the situation.
“Don’t block the path, don’t block the path!” the coordinator shouts, but the more he hurries the women, the more bags drop and the more laughter fills the air.
By 8 a.m., the CARE team has managed to distribute all 800 bags of rice, which, once divided into two, will be able to feed 1,600 families in Delmas, a community within Port-au-Prince, for two weeks.
Aid agencies began distributing food to people immediately after the disaster. However, the desperate instinct to survive in these dire times ended up marginalising the weak. Men regularly jumped the lines, pushing women and the elderly to the back.
To ensure all populations are reached, CARE now only distributes to women as the representatives of their families. While most women are expected to carry their own bags, CARE workers help pregnant women and the elderly reach the edge of the wall-protected distribution area before they are met by male relatives who then help them carry the bags home.
Home these days means a tent or a tarp-covered area, often next to mountains of rubble and complete destruction. These families have lost everything. And while they already had little before January 12th, they now have even less.
It has been one month now since the earthquake decimated pockets of Haïti, killing more than 200,000 people and displacing 1,200,000. But when looking at these women’s faces that morning, it could have been just any other day. Smiling and giggling and wearing colourful clothes, they waited excitedly in line for their bags, holding hands with each other.
Since the earthquake hit, CARE has reached more than 100,000 people through food distributions. In other areas, CARE is distributing shelter kits, newborn kits, hygiene kits, blankets, and building latrines, reaching more than 200,000 people in total.
Newsroom
