People Sending Ski Jackets, Viagra To Tsunami Victims In Sri Lanka

[matcom]

:eyes:

<snip>

GALLE, Sri Lanka -- The grateful people of Sri Lanka would like to make a humble request to all those who have offered succor to its devastated tsunami victims: Please, no more ski jackets, moisturizing gel or Viagra.

The recent outpouring of tsunami support has brought with it a mountain of unusable stuff from the Western world. That includes cozy winter hats, Arctic-weather tents, cologne and thong underwear. Dubbed "frustrated cargo" by aid workers -- because it often has nowhere to go -- these misfit items are gathering dust in warehouses and creating major headaches for relief workers in the field.

Mounds of donated clothes litter the coastal highway south of Colombo. Bottled water from European mountain streams is flowing freely, raising concern about empties littering the jungle. Medicines that are no longer needed, such as morphine, are feared to be loose in the country.

Some people are putting items of no apparent local value to creative use. Impakt Aid, a Sri Lankan group, cites two dozen goose-down jackets it recently received from a European relief agency. The group forwarded the coats to a refugee camp. There, they were used to wrap babies without diapers.

"People are just bringing anything and everything," says Melanie Kanaka, a World Bank administrator who is helping coordinate aid in the battered town of Galle. "We don't have the resources in this country to sort it all out."

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB110736905464843808-IdjeoNolaN4npuuZ32GbqiEm4,00.html

[Richardo]

1. 'People' are, after all, idiots

I can think of 61 million of them right off the top of my head.

[Nihil]

2. Not the first time

I recall hearing a charity worker involved in relief work for one of
the African famines showing the "aid" package sent by the ladies from
an American church: a crate of padded bras ...

When the interviewer snorted in disbelief, the aid worker grinned and
showed how they were actually being used ... they cut them in half and
trimmed the straps to generate two child-sized rice bowls!

Necessity is the mother of invention.

[ImpeachBush]

3. Let's see, how can they improvise Parka's and viagra?

I imagine parka's can be modified for many uses ... but viagra? The possibilities are endless!

[Orsino]

4. Can't wait to see the anti-Cargo Cult arise...

...with natives building giant bamboo trash cans in an effort to persuade the gods to haul that crap away.

[Richardo]

6. HA!

Hilarious, Orsino :D

[SarahB]

5. Just what people need after the loss of their homes and families...

Boner pills! :eyes:

Stupid. As usual, people are idiots.