Yesterday afternoon Vodou Aid (http://vodouaid.org) sent another $1200
to Haiti for hurricane relief. Western Union charged us $132, making
the total disbursement $1332. A few dollars remain in the Vodou Aid
account, but not enough to make another $100 and send it.

The money will be used to buy one pig for a maximum of $300 US, which
will be a medium-sized castrated male, the usual food pig. We will
also buy one sack of beans, and the remainder will buy rice.

You know, the first Vodou Aid appeal for food, lo these many years
ago, netted $1800. And at that time, a sack of rice was less than
$100 Haitian, so we were able to buy a truckload, and cases of milk,
and gallons and gallons of oil, and cases of spaghetti and cases of
tomato paste and sacks of onions, it was really something!

Now, with rice at roughly $350 a twenty-five pound sack, $1000 US buys
about twenty sacks, that's 500 pounds of rice. It would buy more here
in the USA! The poorest of the world's poor pay the highest price.