over. Houses were piles of rubble under a dust cloud. All that was left of the cathedral were some stone walls and a few arches. The tower, the roof, the main walls were gone. Under the stones were the hundreds who had fled inside for safety. None sur¬vived. The earthquake killed some 6,000 people of Ambato that sunny afternoon. Pelileo was worse. Closest to the center of the earth¬quake, not a wall of a single building was left standing, and the city where once 7,000 had lived looked now as if some huge steam roller had squashed it flat. You could not tell what had been house, where streets had been. The following January I went through the town. Here and there was a piece of bedstead, part of a shoe, a smashed pot, a section of cornice, a length of wall. When the wind blew, there was still the stench of the dead. In one corner of what had been the town park were flowers and crosses, marking a grave of 300 bodies. Four thousand people still live in the tent city of Pelileo, a mile up the mountains, set up by the Ecuadore- an Red Cross. Local units rushed in first aid and dis¬aster teams. Food, medicine, equipment, and money were rushed in from Red Cross societies all over the world by plane and ship. The American Red Cross alone flew in $135,000 worth of supplies in the first 2 weeks. The moment our truck reached a town we were sur¬rounded by the entire population—not just children, everybody. Where they came from, how they knew we were coming, we never knew. Communications may s be primitive, but their grapevine is terrific. What meant most to the children were 19,000 gift boxes sent by the American Junior Red Cross. Every child in every village hit by the earthquake got a box with pencils, pads, soap, toothbrush, and small toys. Usually they opened the boxes in dead stillness. Some¬times they wandered off into a corner, by twos and threes, to look inside. Then they began to shout and compare gifts. The boys got an unusual kick out of the harmonicas, but everybody enjoyed the balls. Getting around to the towns to give out the boxes wasn't easy. Floods had washed out many roads. But where the roads were impassable, we sent word ahead 16 to have the youngsters come down to meet us. They often walked 2 or 3 miles, and sometimes waited several hours. I gave out gifts by flashlight. Everybody helped distribute the boxes. The governor of the province gave them out in the schools in Ambato. But it was Mario Viteri, President of the Ecuadorean Junior Red Cross, and Carlos Acosta, Director of the Centro Ecuatoriano Norteamericano, who were my right and left hands. Many days they worked 12 to 14 hours a day going up and down steep mountains visiting each school. In the village of Atocha, one little boy set up an awful howl as we were driving away. We immediately stopped the truck and discovered that he hadn't got a box. When we asked him why he hadn't spoken up when his name was called, he told us he was afraid the boxes were full of vaccination material, and he didn't want to be vaccinated. He got his box. But the most important thing came after the boxes had been distributed. The American Junior Red Cross decided to finance a special project from the Na¬tional Children's Fund to introduce vocational training into Ecuador's schools. Rather than clothes, the Ameri¬can children wanted to give equipment for schools so that the pupils could learn to help themselves and others. Sewing and manual training, as we know them, are new to Ecuador. Although the Ministry of Education had wanted to introduce this kind of practical instruction for a long time, equipment was not available. First we set up classes to teach the teachers to teach their pupils home economics and manual training. Then we had to buy materials. The Ecuadorean Junior Red Cross helped pay for materials, set up the courses, and saw to it that the material was used prop¬erly. Almost all the material came from Quito, the capital, because no city in the earthquake region was in a position to supply anything. My salvation on the shopping trips was Mario. He seemed to know every shopkeeper in the country and got us wonderful prices. Mario, along with his Red Cross job, reported for one of the local papers and directed a boys' club. In Quito we bought over 20,000 American dollars' worth of supplies. Our dollar was worth 6 Ecuadorean dollars at the time, and so our money went far. We got 17