By coincidence, Marilyn and I were at a fund-raiser yesterday for assisting the on-going relief program in the Philippines following last year's devastating typhoon. We wanted to buy a couple of shelter boxes to add to a couple we sent earlier. These boxes are fantastic. They contain a large tent, sleeping bags, cooking utensils, etc and can provide shelter for a family of 10 people. They cost about $1000 each and are now used all over the world in emergency situations. We were told yesterday that there are about 30000 families in the Philippines housed in shelter boxes.
The tongue-tied Rotarian who was explaining the Shelter box program yesterday treated us to a little bit of gratuitous racism. He said that it takes 2 Rotarians to move one box but he has seen some natives or Afghan-types carry one on their heads. Afghan-types?
There was a raffle, of course. I wish my understanding of Mathematics was better so I could explain the extraordinary results. About 500 tickets were sold and there were 20 prizes. I would have thought the chance of winning a prize was 1 in 25, pretty good odds. In fact, 5 people won 2 prizes each and one fellow won 3. We won nothing.
I was chatting with someone about Genealogy when another woman joined us. I told her what we were discussing and she apologised for butting-in, saying that she couldn't add anything to the conversation because all her family had been wiped out during World War II and there were no records or even family stories she could draw on. I felt quite embarrassed when I realised that her story is not uncommon. European Jews, descendants of American slaves and many other groups just don't have access to the sorts of records that we take for granted.
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