Just as a reminder, our Bhutanese friends seem to get enough kitchen supplies like glasses, plates, etc when they arrive and we have lots of sets that have already been donated sitting in my garage and the annex. Cooking pots in good condition do seem to be needed sporadically. We no longer provide rice cookers, since they need to learn that rice can be cooked on the stove top. They can request rice cookers from their respective agencies, as it is an expectation of their resettlement via the UN agreement. Mike did a brief lesson on this last week but maybe we need to ask them to teach their neighbors. Most homes I visit that don't have a rice cooker still use pressure cookers, which seem to make the whole house steamy hot. (Tika's house was 90 degrees and steamy again Saturday night, though the a/c was running when I checked).

So bottom line, if anyone asks how to help, IMHO we need to focus on hygiene, as this will severely impede their assimilation and job search if it's not up to standard, and the kids will suffer at school if they are dirty.

We have about exhausted our store of children's clothes for the under 10 year old crowd (which means sizes up to 8), and definitely the under 5 crowd, boys and girls.

We need underwear in missy/juniors/small; and mens underwear in boys medium/large and men's small, medium.

There are now several LARGE bags of donations and several large boxes of donations waiting to be sorted. Carol, perhaps Kamala A. and Kalpana and her daughter/daughter in law would like to help?

I am working on a system ......I got myself in a jam by taking notes on one family, then got surrounded by many more wanting more. Yesterday the new idea that circulated like wild fire was locking metal boxes for their documents. I wondered if this was because of the fear of the fires (the camps often had huge very destructive fires and folks lost their documents as a result) or just an idea someone had and everyone else liked? We want to be fair, above all, and not overlook people like the quiet Chuwans when other people are more vocal and assertive to get what they want or need.

I realize this is old news to some, but we have new team members (yea!).

Blessings,
Carla