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June 21, 2008

Food Distribution to Tuareg Refugees

We went out to Mentao yesterday to distribute rice, oil, milk and plastic sheeting.

Action Sociale is the local organisation charged with the refugee situation, so we invited two of their representatives to come with us. They suggested that we distribute the stocks according to the number of children in any one family, rather than simply giving one sack per family. This seemed fair enough, since some families have four children and some have twelve.

The other change to the plan was that our purchase of tea and sugar was scrapped in favour of milk - which is more nutritious, even if less culturally appropriate.

The haut commissaire and a good helping of gendarmes came along as well for moral support!

I've been trying to upload photos, but the connection here is terrible at the moment and I haven't been able to do so. More later...

Posted by sahelsteve at June 21, 2008 05:30 PM