As I exited the bus, I nearly keeled over from the ripe stench of Garbage City. How could one million people live with a smell like that? Our team was charged with delivering food packages to the neediest families in Garbage City.

Our smiling guide, a resident of this filthy city, guided us to our first destination. I told myself to breath through my mouth as we passed piles and piles of refuse, plastics, cardboard, and organic waste. It was loaded onto truck beds, trailers pulled by donkeys, and heaps of the stuff was wilting in and outside of people's "homes" (if you can call it that).

Mothers deftly stepped around the trash while children ran through the stuff like it wasn't there. Finally, we arrived to deliver our package of joy to the first family. Only, it wasn't a family. Sitting on a filthy bed, with her feet next to small oven to keep warm, was an elderly widow, dressed in black, with a mournful face I will never forget.

Our guide helped us to understand that she had no family, few visitors, and was extremely lonely. Her 'home' was a small room (about the size of a Western bathroom), with no door and open to the dirt street, a filthy bed, a broken fridge, and a few photos she had salvaged from the garbage. She was overjoyed as we each shook her hand and gave her a hug.

It seemed that she was more hungry for company than for food. I know that as I travel back home, this widow will be on my mind. I may not be able to visit her again soon, but I can help by sharing what I have with her.

Please consider a donation towards food and essential supplies (new, clean mattress, warm blanket, working fridge) for underprivileged people, like this widow, in Garbage City.