A pool at the bottom of the mountain shared by both human beings and animals was their water supply.
The twinkling stars and the bright moon were their only source of illumination.
A whole family huddled together under one blanket.
How many times had they woken up at night from the cold?
With clothes lovingly donated by the Taiwanese,
I hoped that the little children would smile in their dreams.

Holding her two-month-old baby, seventeen-year-old Maria came to the distribution center at the temporary shelter of Nueva Choluteca in southern Honduras. She had wrapped a towel around her little baby so that he wouldn't be burned by the sun and the wind.

Just like women who had lost their husbands, unwed Maria had to shoulder the responsibility of bringing up her child alone. Even in ordinary times, she could barely make a living by selling things. In October 1998, Hurricane Mitch destroyed her home and left her with nothing. She had no idea how she and her baby would survive.

Living in a tent with her own five children and seven other families, Oralia Lineres described the nightmare with lingering fear. Early in the morning of October 30, 1998, she was woken up by a loud noise that told her that the house was about to collapse. She grabbed her children and ran outside in a panic. Her home was destroyed and many of her close friends died. She had no one to turn to.

Originally, Leresdina Casira had made her living by running a little stand in the market. Because she was not registered as a household, the government would not let her stay in one of the public shelters. Therefore, she and other people in the same predicament used wooden boards and large plastic bags to build their own shelter near Mogote Mountain. Later, the government wanted to use that land and forced the group to move higher up the mountain.

A pool further down the mountain shared by both human beings and animals was their water supply. The twinkling stars and the bright moon were their only source of illumination. The whole family suffered through many long, cold nights huddled together under one blanket.

"There is no one so poor as to have nothing."

On the first two days of February, the sun shone brightly. Eighty-three Tzu Chi members dressed in blue shirts and white trousers arrived in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, and Choluteca. They traveled to over ten different shelters in Nueva Esperanza and the Mogote Mountain area, delivering into the hands of the victims clothes and canned food donated by the people of Taiwan. From newspaper and magazine reports, and also from Tzu Chi members who had earlier surveyed the disaster areas, I was aware of the extent of the damage the hurricane had done to Tegucigalpa. Now I saw the city of sadness myself: washed-out streets, collapsed homes, uprooted trees, the sad expressions of survivors, and the vultures hovering in the sky waiting to eat the bodies of dead animals. Into the midst of this scene of despair, the Tzu Chi relief teams brought material supplies, love, care and concern.

At Nueva Esperanza, the relief materials were moved from the warehouse onto a playground. Bags of clothes packed according to size, sacks of rice, and cases of canned food glittered under the bright sun. Distribution coupons in hand, the storm victims, with their children trailing behind them, arrived at the distribution site. They lined up according to their coupon number and waited for the distribution, while armed police officers around them maintained order. Each family received one bag of clothes, one sack of rice, and one case of canned food.

After Sister Wu Shun-chih read in Spanish a letter of consolation from Master Cheng Yen, Huang Szu-hsien, CEO of the Tzu Chi US Branch, addressed the people. He said, "Holy Mother Mary said that there is no one in this world who is so poor as to have nothing. We believe that as long as there is love, there is hope. Although we didn't bring very many relief items, we brought with us love and care. We are grateful to you for giving us this opportunity to serve you, and we hope that you will help each other. May God bless you all."

During the distribution, a single hug could change sad faces into smiling ones. As soon as the children received their clothes, they put them on with joy. Some of them pulled at my uniform and pointed to my camera, asking me to take pictures of them dressed in their new clothes.

The Tzu Chi members had not forgotten to bring lollipops for the children. Seeing the candy, the children's eyes sparkled. Some of them started to eat them right away. Some hid them behind their backs and stretched out their hands for more. One girl shared hers with her younger sister, each taking turns licking the candy, thus showing the love of siblings for each other. Two-year-old Emma pulled the hand of a Tzu Chi member, begging for an extra one for her mother. Seeing her lovely, small face filled us with sympathy, and her kind heart touched us all.

The smiles of the patients

During the distribution, the Tzu Chi International Medical Association (TIMA) also provided free medical services. Doctors from California, Virginia, New York and the Dominican Republic had quickly formed a fourteen-member team. Based on information they had received about local needs, they had prepared necessary medicine and equipment. They offered free examinations and treatments at shelters in Nueva Esperanza and in the Mogote Mountain area.

Claudia, twenty-one years old, came to see the doctors with mixed feelings of nervousness and anticipation. She said it was the first time she had ever seen a doctor. Whenever she was sick, she just bought some medicine at a drugstore, or most of the time she simply ignored the symptoms. At first, she was very apprehensive when Dr. Tseng Tun-hua treated her with acupuncture, but after the treatment eased the pain in her stomach and chest, she gave glowing accounts to her friends about the miracle of acupuncture.

One Tzu Chi member carried an old woman on his back all the way down from Mogote Mountain. Due to severe pain in her feet, she could no longer walk. After twenty minutes of acupuncture, that woman miraculously walked back home on her own. An old man had a stiff neck which had been bothering him for some time. After receiving acupuncture, he could turn his neck freely. The great smiles of these patients brought cheer to all.

Since there was no water and no electricity, the dentists could only do tooth extractions and simple prosthetic dentistry. Some patients' teeth were so bad that the dentists could only pull them, one after another. They extracted about 120 teeth over the course of two days.

Most patients were treated by western doctors. Dr. Chou Kui-hung from the Dominican Republic, who had participated in a Tzu Chi free clinic before in his own country, also took part in the free clinic in Honduras. In fluent Spanish, he explained to patients how to take their medicine. If children started crying, he would give them lollipops to divert their attention. Because of their hard lives, many people had skin diseases, stomachaches or chest pains. One little boy had cut his foot, which had then become infected and developed an abscess. Dr. Shu Ming-chang carefully cleaned it for him. During the two days, the medical team treated a total of 902 patients.

Clothes distribution

In a warehouse run by the Catholic Caritas organization at Lolo, Tzu Chi members and local volunteers sorted donated clothes for men, women, boys, girls and infants. Each victim was given four pieces of clothing.

To complete the distribution smoothly and efficiently, Tzu Chi members had designed a packing system, according to which each volunteer went to a specified place to fetch the necessary type of clothing, as if they were shopping. Having learned through an interpreter how the clothes had been donated and collected in Taiwan, the volunteers worked happily and enthusiastically and completed their tasks quickly.

Out of the twenty-three containers of clothing, three were donated to the Maria Foundation, which was established by the First Lady of the nation, Mary de Flores. The remaining twenty containers of clothes and two containers of canned food were distributed to the hurricane victims through Caritas, which has branches throughout the country and is familiar with the needs of the local people.

When the First Lady opened a box of baby clothes and saw how neatly all the pretty clothes were folded, she praised the thoughtfulness of the Tzu Chi members. She had been touring her country since the hurricane, giving consolation and distributing relief materials. When she heard Huang Szu-hsien introduce the Tzu Chi concept of doing international relief work, she was very touched.

Winding up the distribution and free clinic in Honduras, Huang and nine other Tzu Chi members continued on to the neighboring countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua to distribute clothes there.

Oscar Toledo of the Family Planning Center in El Salvador said that when he opened the boxes, he was surprised to see that some of the clothes were brand-new and that all clothes were clean and neatly folded. This was quite different from other donations he had seen.

After Honduras, Nicaragua was the second hardest-hit by the hurricane. The Pan-American Highway leading to North America was cut off by floodwaters. Although three months had gone by since the disaster, the water had not yet receded in many areas and many houses in those areas were still flooded. Here the Tzu Chi members entrusted twelve containers of donated clothes to Caritas for distribution.

"This activity of love has brought Catholics and Buddhists together," noted Dr. Ronald Bendana Hurtado, national director of Caritas. "Our purpose is to relieve the suffering of the victims. The Tzu Chi Foundation can rest assured that we will send the clothes to the devastated areas and deliver them into the hands of the needy ourselves."

In the afternoon of January 25, just as the Tzu Chi members were preparing for the distribution in Honduras, news came that an earthquake with a magnitude of six on the Richter scale had occurred in Columbia, South America. The Tzu Chi US branch immediately assigned three members to survey the two most seriously damaged areas of Calarca and Armenia. After the distribution in Central America was completed on February 6, four other Tzu Chi members went on to Columbia for further surveys.

By February 22, rice was being distributed in Columbia and on February 27, distributions of clothing and free clinics began in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

After I returned to Taiwan, the people in Central and South America continued to be on my mind. I missed them and I wondered whether the little children, wearing their new clothes, could now smile during their dreams at night.