In Reply to: Need advice on appropriate food items to posted by Balibabe on Friday, 30. September 2005 at 21:23 Bali Time:
FOODS: In the country villages you could accompany your friends/host on a market-shopping trip and pay for some or all of the purchases that they select.
Basic foodstuffs like rice, sugar, tea or local coffee, cooking oils, beef/chicken/pork, milk powder, eggs, corn, paraffin (kerosene) for cooking stoves, iodised salt, pepper, instant noodles, fruits and vegetables might be long remembered.
A family of 2 adults and two young children will consume 30 kg of rice (with other things such as meat, vegetables, fruit etc) in 1 month.
Foodstuffs are a good option if you believe that a family might be hungry and that cash would be used for some other non-nutritious purpose.
If you feel confident to judge a family's health needs then gifts of vitamins, natural supplements and pre-natal calcium and vitamin products could be considered.
Bundles of incense sticks, even though they can buy these themselves, seem to be a welcomed mark of respect to their religion when presented as ‘oleh-oleh'.