Compassion Houses

On Sunday, we went with Mike, Doh and Noel, the Madison Quaker (MQ) gang to do site visits of 6-7 Compassion Houses. Each village seems to have a committe (VAVA)whose job is to identify "worst case" families in desperate need of housing and other support with a priority on those impacted by Agent Orange, a very toxic defolient used during the war. MQ has commmitted to 15 or so houses in the Quang Ngai province where the chemical was used heavily. I thought we had already seen some pretty poor folks and houses in the countryside, but these were surely worst cases for the most part. We went far down rural roads and saw many under-nourished children and poor wooden shacks.The VAVA village or district committee selects the recipients... A very ill woman and her only daughter, taken from school to care for her, an ill man who looked as if he might have AIDs, whose wife abandoned him, a woman who may have polio and had to put her childrten in an orphange, a family with a severly retarded child who seemed to be locked in a dirty closet much of the day because of her violent behavior... It seems like every disease and genetic disorder is attributed to A.Orange and probably much of it is.The simple houses cost about $1,500 each and they are a huge step up for these families with toliets, wells and tiny gardens. We were required to take photos of us with poor folks for future fund raising materials. We did give them gifts of canned milk and some small money. It was emotional day for all of us to look such brutual poverty in the face and to be the weird, wealthy "observors." With the VAVA committe rep., a journalist and and MQ, we (8-9 of us)had to peek into barebones kitchens and bedrooms to "check" progress, I guess, while the new owners looked on anxiously. Of course, it is necessary to make sure the construction that was paid for it actaully completed, and useful for funders to see the results. The MQ have insisted that the houses they fund do not have the usual governemnt plaques, hoping to spare people some of the embaressment of being a major charity case. I thought of many people I've seen in Africa and even Appalachia who still who live in houses that seem not livable. Something so wrong in our world.