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What happens when a truck unloads 1,000 pairs of shows in a poor town where a single pair is worth one week's salary? At first, it's a joyous sight: piles upon piles of all sizes styles and colors, distributed in an orderly fasion, one pair per person. then the crowd grows, some get greedy and chaos ensues.

Published: Monday, February 14, 2005
By Story and photos by Nathan Welton
The Tribune

TEPEYAC, Nicaragua -- A thin stream of water dribbles down the potholed road leading to the mountain community of Tepeyac, Nicaragua. It's leaked from the jugs villagers haul to their homes in handmade wheelbarrows. They don't have running water.

Craig Cowan and his crew drive the dusty road in an air-conditioned minivan followed by a truck carrying 1,000 pairs of shoes. They're planning to distribute them at the community's elementary school. It's day 29 of Cowan's 30-day visit, and customs has finally cataloged and released the crates of footwear donated by San Luis Obispo County residents for poor Nicaraguans.

Today Cowan relies on the help of expatriate and local real estate developer Sandy Perkoff and his business partner, Leroy Martin, who follow the convoy in their own car.

Tepeyac sits on the flank of the Mombacho volcano, overlooking both Lake Nicaragua and the town of Granada. The volcano blew its top eons ago, hurling massive rocks into the lake. Those have since eroded into islands now reserved for the grand estates of Nicaragua's elite.

In this impoverished village, thick white clouds sweep across a radiant blue sky, and the air is temperate and crisp. Strangler fig, banana, avocado and mango trees create a low forest canopy.

Local families subsist on a few dollars a day, earned from picking coffee or bananas on nearby plantations. Many live in dirt-floored huts, and parents must sometimes choose whether to feed their children or outfit them for school.

Near the village, Martin stops the car to tell anyone he sees about the afternoon's plan.

"Many thanks," says a grandmother, hobbling along with two barefoot children. A grateful smile appears on her wizened face.

Orderly giveaway

The convoy pulls into a grassy clearing at the community's school, made up of two modest buildings and a creaky, wooden outhouse. The truck drivers begin unloading the cargo.

Perkoff introduces Cowan to Benjamin Palacio Acevedo, a baker and the community's leader. Acevedo has spread the word throughout Tepeyac, with its 200 families with roughly 800 children.

The giveaway will mean a lot in this town, where one pair of shoes costs a week's pay.

Families slowly begin arriving at the school, with children walking hand in hand. What they see on the schoolhouse steps amazes them: running shoes, high heels, galoshes, bedroom slippers and oxfords, all separated into child and adult piles.

Parents and children form an orderly line and crane their necks to get a better look at the shoes. When their turn comes, they spend a few minutes carefully selecting a pair that fits -- and then move aside as others make their selections.

Acevedo tells people to take only one pair; most respect his request.

Tears fall down Cowan's cheeks as he watches.

More villagers arrive as the afternoon wears on, and soon people are coming from all directions. What was a manageable group of five or so families is rapidly growing larger.

Acevedo tries to separate the children from the adults, but it is a futile attempt to quash impending disorder.

"Look at this guy," says translator Juan Rivera Aguilar, pointing to a teenager. "He's got eight pairs."

A frenzy

A crowd now fills the schoolyard as people cram up against each other, shoving toward the delivery. Somehow the line completely dissolves as about 200 people elbow their way to the front.

A woman claws her way through a throng of children, grabs at the pile and runs off with an armload of shoes. Teens leap from their bikes and swarm the piles. They stuff shoes in pockets and backpacks, they tie their T-shirts into makeshift sacks and they haul off more.

Everyone seems to have not one, but three, five, seven pairs.

One of the boxes is still full, someone yells, and scores of people leap forward to get into the crate.

Cowan's friend, Lisa Postle, tries to hold the box shut, but a child sinks his teeth into her hand.

Someone knocks Rivera Aguilar into the crate, and as he wrestles his way upright, hands begin to pry the shoes off his feet.

Trapped in the middle of the crowd, Cowan has no clue how to stop the stampede.

"Juan," he screams. "Tell them that if they do this any more, we're not coming back next year."

Nobody listens.

"They're acting like dogs," he yells in frustration. "Animals!"

Giggling boys stuff high heels, pink slippers and even baby shoes into their backpacks.

"They're for my sisters," they say. "They're for my mother."

In short order, the crowd has seized 800 pairs.

Off to the side, slumped against a tree, 10-year-old Ana Rosa Mercado watches the chaos with her little brother, Carlos.

"I wanted shoes," she says.

All she got was a T-shirt that doesn't fit.

As the mob disperses, Martin shouts at people to thank Cowan, but few say anything. Most just stare, and then walk away.

They take with them the shoes, the T-shirts and even the garbage bags that the shirts were in. They take the remains of the cardboard boxes. They take the forklift skids on which the crates sat.

They take it all.