(This is the caravan of our cars! The trailer was full of shoes and the group's clothes!) 
Two days ago I was fortunate enough to join an American Missionary group to an extremely poor town called La Rinconada a few hours north of Cordoba. The group was from a church in Missouri, and they came down to give shoes to children, and help build a house that is being funded by a church in Argentina. There was room for one more, so Mr. Fulfer asked if I wanted to go. There was a caravan of three cars, and we headed out from a church here in Cordoba at 5am. We got there around 11:00 or so, after braving through dirt roads that spit up enough dust to blind you. This town (I can't remember the name..) isn't even on a map. They recently got electricity (only a few hours a day) which is powered by a generator and everyone pitches in for the cost. There is no running water, so the well in the center of town is where people come with buckets for their ration. By ration, I simply mean you have to be EXTREMELY careful with the water you have, because it has to supply everyone. All 15 of us were taught how to get water from the well, and how to pour water into the toilet so gravity could flush it down. After we set up our things, the caravan of our three cars set out to about 5 schools to gives shoes to the kids. I met a lot of wonderful children, and wonderful people who are happy with what they have. Some people have to travel by horse 2 hours each way to take their kids to school. After going from school to school, we were given jobs for the house that is being built for a family to live in. The donations are coming from the church here in Cordoba, where I go on Sundays. People are donating left and right so this home can be built for a family up there. I painted window frames and cleaned rust from the metal bars with a chemical that smelt of rotten eggs ;)We cooked dinner later that night and made a stew to feed about 25 people (including some women from the town.) On our last day, we finished our route to give out the shoes, and were invited by a family to eat lunch at their home. They served us goat (I think) with potatoes and carrots. I have never such poverty. They live miles from anything. Even though the dust storms, the one hour travel time for water, the lack of food.. they are happy. They served us mate after our meal and the gentleman let us pet the goats. One kid even asked the translator to ask "Is it okay if I try to catch a chicken?" That was HILARIOUS. These people are watching Americans chase a chicken to see who can catch it first.
There is too much I could write about this, so I will stop and let the pictures do the talking. There are many more to come, when I can get them from other people's cameras.<-- This little boy finally warmed up to me and we tossed the ball back and forth.
You can see the well where you use the red bucket to get water. The building above with the flag, is one of the schools we went too.
The picture up top of the batroom: The large red bucket is where you put clean water. you take a little at a time with the yellow bowl on the chair, and pour that in the toilet to flush. You have to throw all toilet paper in the garbage. We also washed our hands in the yellow bowl.
