A Day with the Cruz Roja Paraguaya

I knew when I left the house at 7am yesterday that I was going to have a busy day, but I had no idea I’d end up doing 10 hours of disaster relief with the Red Cross. They had apparently talked with the municipality two weeks ago and done a census through the schools in several communities to assess needs, and arrived yesterday bright and early to distribute “mercaderia,” a huge bag weighing close to 50kg with enough staples to feed a family of 5 for a month – flour, pasta, sugar, rice, beans, and, most importantly, yerba for terere.

Yesterday I was in the municipality for another meeting but I never made it there because I was called into the mayor’s office along with the Italian priest and a member of the city council. The Red Cross representative announced that they were here to distribute a certain number of supplies to certain communities (apparently identified by the state governor). We discussed that one community on their list had already received supplies through the Emergencia Nacional last week, so we decided to divert their stuff to another community. And then they asked me and 2 representatives of the muni to come along in their SUV to distribute the goods, so I cancelled my afternoon activities and off we went, with a banner flying that read “Proyecto Sequia/Incendio Paraguay 2007,” Project of the Drought and Wildfires.

We went first to Planta Uno, a small and pretty poor community 10k away whose teachers I’ve worked with but I didn’t know any of the community members. Along the way we met up with the huge truck with all the supplies, and we decided to set up a distribution center at the school. The muni was apparently supposed to let the people know we were coming, but didn’t, so along the way we honked at people and pointed in the direction of the school, then when we got to the school we sent the kids home to tell their parents to come to get supplies (fortunately they only missed the last half hour of classes), and we called the radio station to tell the dj to announce that community members should come. Within half an hour there were hundreds of people hanging out in the school yard. Some of the Red Cross people emptied the truck, counting out exactly 175 bags, and 175 of big 4L bottles of cooking oil and smaller 1L bottles. Each family, defined as having one roof, had to have more than one person living there, and had to have participated in the previous census (though there were enough bags leftover from people who didn’t show up that day that we were able to give even un-census-ed people supplies), and those with despensas/grocery stores were excluded so they wouldn’t resell the goods.

It took over an hour to get things set up, as the Red Cross people copied the census names onto another form, and one guy set up an interview station to assess the community needs. I eavesdropped on that conversation, where they compared the cost of goods and the productivity of the farms before and after the drought/wildfires. They explained that many crops have failed because of lack of water (it’s nearly impossible to find bananas or guayabas right now, even though it should be the season for both), and prices have gone up (a liter of oil that was once 7mil is now 8mil, and milk and meat have skyrocketed). The effects of all this are starting to reach the merchants in the city too, as people are buying less new clothes or other non-essential items, but no help has arrived so far for the city folks. The idea is apparently that the Red Cross will return monthly with more supplies to meet other identified needs, but it’s doubtful they’ll have the funds to come back.

It took hours and hours to distribute all the supplies, people were patient even though it was hot out, and there was obvious excitement as to the relief these supplies will bring to families struggling to get by. From the census list, a name was called, that person had to come forward and present their identification card (if the person who had done the census wasn’t there, a family member could present that person’s id card. In a few cases where people didn’t have id cards, if the community identified them they were able to get their supplies anyway). Then the Red Cross spreadsheet listed the number of kids under 5 and women over 8 in the house, which I thought was interesting. There was also a short questionnaire asking more in-depth questions such as whether the family had a stove or running water. I was in charge of guarding the big bags while the families answered the questions, and often helping them lift the bags onto motos or bicycles, and occasionally even backs.

When we finished at 4pm, a good four hours behind the Red Cross’s schedule due to extended talks at the municipality and incomplete census information, the group met to discuss whether to continue to Planta Dos, another community closer to Tacuati. The decision was to go evaluate the location of the distribution – if the school had outdoor lights, we’d do it, if not we’d wait til tomorrow. The other problem was that we knew that we didn’t have enough supplies for all the families in Planta Dos. The city councilor said that the easy way to divide up the community was by street, and we could distribute to families who lived on Primera Calle and tell those who lived on Segunda Calle that they would receive priority in the Emergencia Nacionale supplies that should arrive next week. But when we looked at the census, we saw that it didn’t separate the families that way. So there was all sorts of drama as to how many people lived on which street and how to determine who got the supplies. It turns out that the school had one outside light and that it was easy to figure out who lived where – someone stood up and asked the 200 or so people who had gathered at the school and had been waiting for hours if they would separate – Primera Calle on this side and Segunda Calle on that side. Sometimes it’s easy to get caught up in the paperwork and forget that people can help themselves. It was interesting too to see how the woman in charge relied on the people to make a couple of decisions – even though the supplies weren’t supposed to go to single-person households, she asked the group if it would be ok if two single people split a bag, and when they agreed she divided up the supplies that way, according to the community’s wishes. So we again distributed supplies, and there were more people here that I knew so that made it more fun. It was 7 or 8pm when we finished.

We packed up and went to the house of one of the Red Cross guy’s brother, who happens to live in Tacuati, and is married to a teacher friend of mine. So we relaxed for a while, drank a bit of beer and ate a delicious asado. The Red Cross people were all volunteers for this humanitarian project, though some work for the organization during the week and others have real jobs too. Nine of the ten were guys, which I found not only interesting but fun. I’ve realized how much I miss hanging out with the boys – here in Paraguay my close friends are from our teaching group, all women, and all the volunteers in my region are women. So it was nice to spend time with guys, and interesting too to meet Paraguayans who work for an NGO. It was mostly work talk though, because the information given by the state turned out to be incredibly wrong for the farther-away communities scheduled for the next morning’s delivery. For example, Py’a Guapy, a community of hundreds of families, was for some reason listed as getting 15 bags. Fifteen!! Also the communities listed were on opposite sides of the district and the group would waste hours criss-crossing back and forth on the dirt roads. Fortunately the brother was helpful in identifying other communities that fit better with the amount of supplies left and the time the Red Cross team had to spend before getting to another community the next afternoon. I stumbled home around midnight, sore from lifting heavy bags and being on my feet from about 11am-7pm, but fascinated by the disaster-relief side of development work I’d never seen before.

A few thoughts … I think of the Red Cross as being the ultimate in professional, efficient international organizations, which may be ridiculous anyway, but it was interesting for me to see how they had to rely on state governments who gave out wrong numbers and municipalities who forget to advertise and teachers who don’t do the assessment census correctly. It’s also likely that several communities were identified or left off the list by the governor or the mayor for political reasons. The distribution of supplies was efficient, somewhat cold maybe in the never-ending stream of people coming for help, and in the end, I know that there are people in need who got help yesterday because of their presence. I thought it was funny that the Red Cross people arrived at exactly the same time as the Social Services people, and that I was still dealing with the medical supplies from the US Embassy that have yet to be distributed. All the help is great but it’s piling up and there’s still not really an infrastructure in place to keep it all organized. I still get the feeling that I was only involved in all this because I happened to be in the right place at the right time. The priest was very involved, to the point of directing things, which I thought was rather strange, since he’s only been in Tacuati a few months and after all isn’t Paraguayan. He’s respected, though, and is often a voice for justice and nonpartisanship and democracy and transparency, so that’s good, but it makes me uncomfortable how he just tells the mayor what to do. However, I’m not sure the mayor knows what he should be doing, so maybe it’s necessary. I had avoided disaster relief as a career option, mostly because I don’t see myself pulling bodies out of buildings after earthquakes or living in refugee camps for the rest of my life, but perhaps there’s something to the logistics side of disaster relief that I’d be good at. I was on the margins of the decision-making all day, not being a Red Cross personnel nor particularly familiar with the communities nor quick enough with my Spanish or Guarani, but I found myself itching to set up this system or that system, to organize something useful. Maybe when I’m in Asuncion in a few weeks I’ll look more into this kind of work…