Social Work in War Rehabilitation: Narrative Report on Relief and Medical Social Work in El Oro Province, 1942-1943

My introduction to the people of El Oro Province took place in a cemetery. A few days after my arrival, I was invited by Miss Bolivia Benitez, a respected, elderly social leader, to attend a ceremony at Machala in honor of those who had lost their lives during the border dispute between Ecuador and Peru a year earlier. Miss Benitez, a tiny, swarthy, energetic woman, marched me a good kilometer under the equatorial sun to the outskirts of the town.