BY JULIE IRWIN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
![[girl and doll]](/editions/1998/11/13/girldoll_110x196.jpg)
Esther Acuna, who lost her home to floodwaters, found a doll in a river near Chinandega, Nicaragua.
(AP photo)
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MANAGUA, Nicaragua - Forty-two thousand pounds of hope landed in Nicaragua on Thursday, sent from the Cincinnati area to a nation reeling from disaster.
The hope came in medicine bottles, in boxes of clothing and bandages, in crutches and canes - part of a $5.5 million local effort to help Central America recover from yet another cataclysmic disaster.
Although the waters that Hurricane Mitch dumped across the region three weeks ago are receding, the needs of the people are not. The storm, the Atlantic's worst in decades, killed an estimated 4,000 Nicaraguans and an estimated 6,000 others in Central America. Hundreds of thousands of people are without homes or food.
Doctors fear outbreaks of cholera, malaria and other diseases. Politicians fear outbreaks of violence if people remain homeless and hungry.
"We're still finding people isolated completely from the world, and we still don't know the magnitude of the suffering," said Jorge Jarquin, an official with the American Nicaraguan Foundation. "It will probably take 20 years to get back to where we were before this."
The timing of Hurricane Mitch seems particularly cruel in Nicaragua, coming as the nation of 4.5 million residents was starting to recover from a civil war that spanned the 1980s. Last month's hurricane was the third time in three decades that Nicaragua has been brought to its knees, starting with the 1972 earthquake that killed 6,000 people in its capital of Managua.
Whole sections of the city remain in rubble, 26 years later.
Nicaragua is the largest country in Central America and the second-poorest in the Western Hemisphere, behind only Haiti.
"This country has been hit so hard by earthquakes, by hurricanes, by war - it seems like we cannot get a break," Mr. Jarquin said.
Thursday's relief supplies, sent from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, are the second of three shipments from Loveland-based Matthew 25: Ministries. Five hours after a chilly takeoff from the Dayton, Ohio, base, the 42,000 pounds of relief were in tropical Managua and on their way to devastated Nicaragua communities. Matthew 25 has collected more than half a million pounds of supplies from individuals and corporations, an outpouring that has sustained the Rev. Wendell Mettey through his round-the-clock work as director.
"The people of Cincinnati have just been pouring in," said the Rev. Mr. Mettey, watching as the Air Force Reserves 445th Airlift Wing loaded the C-141 cargo plane Thursday morning. "When things like this happen, we are at our best. There is something beautiful about the human spirit that wants to reach out and help someone that's been in a tragedy."
Matthew 25 received help from U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine in arranging this week's shipment. As the Ohio Republican praised the humanitarian efforts Thursday, Mr. DeWine also articulated pragmatic reasons for supporting extensive aid to the region.
"If these countries aren't democratic and stable, and these people don't think they have a future, they are going to be in the United States," he said, noting that a tenth of Nicaragua's population fled to the United States during the Nicaraguan civil war.
"We want people to live in their countries and have a future in their countries," said Mr. DeWine, who was in Dayton for the send-off.
Instability in Central America also increases smuggling of drugs through the region, Mr. DeWine said. And a stable region increases prosperity and an open market for American goods. The U.S. government has provided more than $1 billion in assistance to Nicaragua since 1990.
"When you have a democracy, you have an emerging middle class," he said. "And when you have a middle class, you have people buying American goods."
The Hurricane Mitch relief effort, particularly in neighboring Honduras, has been bolstered by the generosity of Chiquita Brands International. Employees are collecting donations outside its downtown Cincinnati skyscraper, and Chiquita is using its ships to transport aid for major relief organizations such as the Red Cross.
The company has shipped, or is preparing to ship, nearly 200 containers - each about the size of a 40-foot truck trailer - of donated goods. And about 60 volunteers were working at the downtown drop-off for donations today and tomorrow.
The company's more than 7,000 workers in Honduras have been suspended with reduced pay after the hurricane wiped out most of Chiquita's banana harvest. But damage left by the hurricane has Hondurans worrying about more pressing needs: clean water, shelter, food.
Chiquita and its employees have filled three dozen containers with donated goods and hope to fill a few more with the collection effort. The other containers being shipped are from relief organizations.
A Cincinnati doctor who conducted a medical assessment of following the devastation has returned home to rally more help. Dr. Jeffery Heck, residency director for the University of Cincinnati Department of Family Medicine, heads the International Travelers' Clinics and has joined teams of doctors traveling to Honduras since 1992 to provide medical care in remote areas of the country.
After touring devastated sections of Honduras, Dr. Heck returned Wednesday with plans to compile shipments of medical supplies. The annual National Missionary Convention is being held at the Albert B. Sabin Convention Center this weekend, and thousands of conventioneers will be keeping a watch on the relief response. Many of the organizations have missionaries in Central America working in communities devastated by Hurricane Mitch. Supplies are being collected, and several missionaries who have just returned from Honduras will detail efforts there.
"It's our luck we are here in Cincinnati," said Kevin Dooley, executive director of the Indiana-based Fellowship of Associates of Medical Evangelism (FAME). Sharing stories helps to ensure help is getting to the people in need efficiently, he said. And groups have been able to hook up with Chiquita, based a few blocks from the convention hall, to get supplies shipped.
Phillip Pina and Saundra Amrhein contributed to this report.
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