EL MOJON CHIQUIMULA, Guatemala -- Nine-year-old Lide Ramirez and her little brother sat on an 18-pound bag of rice on a recent sunny morning, thinking that for the first time in months they would eat dinner.

``We usually have just some beans with a tortilla,'' Lide said, guarding the bag of U.S.-donated white rice as if it were filled with gold. ``On Sundays, we get to eat breakfast, too. But usually it's just once at lunch.''

The rice was part of the U.S. government's first distribution of food to families struggling through the country's worst drought in three decades.

`IN SERIOUS NEED'

The $15 million project will reach a projected 162,000 people in 295 communities.

``Many of these people have received no type of assistance from the government, so they're in serious need,'' said Maria Bucaro, who oversees distribution in two areas. ``This is important because the government doesn't have anywhere near enough money to reach everyone.''

Lide (who might be the size of a 6-year-old in the U.S.), her three siblings, and 280,000 others who live in Guatemala's dry corridor are accustomed to being hungry. Residents in the region annually experience periods when they run out of corn and beans to eat and out of money to buy food.

But this year, a confluence of bad luck was the difference between living with hunger and dying from it. The prolonged drought ruined crops. The worldwide economic downturn meant Guatemalans living in the U.S. were sending home less money and that seasonal jobs on big farms were harder to come by.

HIGH PRICES

Meanwhile, the cost of food in Guatemala remained out of reach for many. A collection of 26 basic items, including eggs, milk and bread, that would make up a reasonably healthy diet, cost a family of five $8 a day, a hard buy in a country where the majority of people earn less than $2 daily.

With no food and no money, the parents of 54 children in the region saw their kids die of starvation or malnutrition-related diseases, the government said. Across the country, the United Nations estimated that 2.5 million Guatemalans -- about one in five -- had trouble getting enough to eat.

Neither the World Food Program nor the Guatemalan government was prepared for the extent of the crisis. They both ran out of food to distribute. Guatemala's president declared a ``state of calamity'' in September and asked for foreign aid.

Numerous countries, including Venezuela, and international agencies rushed food to Guatemala. On Thursday, the U.S. began its own distribution but as officials celebrated the project with a ceremony in a food warehouse, they warned that it was not a long-term solution.

7,600 TONS

All 7,600 tons of the food will be gone in a year, but an underlying reason why 49 percent of Guatemalan children are chronically malnourished -- the highest rate in Latin America -- will remain.

``We can put numbers on the lost harvest or to the aid from the U.S. But I believe it's important to remember that you can't measure everything with numbers,'' said U.S. Ambassador Stephen McFarland, standing in front of 110-pound bags of food stamped with the ``USAID'' seal.

The food is being distributed through four international organizations: Mercy Corps, Catholic Relief Services, Save the Children, and Share.

Malnutrition and hunger are ``symptoms of the serious structural problems that are affecting Guatemala,'' McFarland told The Miami Herald.