It's a phrase on the tips of tongues, at the
back of minds, and felt in the pit of stomachs. The literal knawing of
hunger and worry for families feeding their children, mothers and fathers exchanging
daily despairingly glances between their withered crops and incessant clear
blue skies – a deep bottomless cerulean blue that’s beautiful to the outsider,
but cruel to those that face the emptiness day after day, month after
month. Sometimes, dark clouds hover low
on the foggy mornings. And everyone knowingly, futility, hopes that with the
grey comes rain.
Then, the school bell rings, you blink. And it’s
gone.
I incredibly underestimated Mozambique’s “dry
season” – the six month stretch between April and October referred to here as
the “tempo de fome,” a time of hunger. I thought the worse thing to live
through here would be the heat of the “wet” season – a heat with crippling
humidity that leaves you in a puddle of your own sweat just by trudging to the
market. But then we had water. Lots and lots of water. And that made the heat
bearable in a way because you could drink when you were thirsty and bathe when
you needed to cool down. Now, it’s finally refreshingly cool. Temperatures have
dropped into the low 50s at night, high 80s max during the day. Perfect for a
PacNW girl like me (even if it makes my outdoor baths often painfully chilly).
But I literally cannot remember the last time it rained*, nor the last time I
didn’t dread my daily water carrying duties that sometimes make me walk around
for an hour trying to find a well that’s not dry or disgusting. And I have it
easy. There are women that walk three miles from neighboring villages in the
bush to visit our pumps in Mapinhane. After filling every bucket, basin, and
bidão they can carry, they then walk the three miles back to their homes in the
bush. Alongside their mothers and sisters, I’ve witnessed children as young as
four or five undergo this water-scavenging ritual. Tiny, muscular arms wrench buckets of water as
big as their own bodies and balance them precariously on their heads. It’s at
times like this, considering the sacrifices of my neighbors, that I can’t help
but feel guilty when I feel tempted to wallow in mulungu self-pity about how “hard”
my life feels some days or how “little time I have” because I always seem to be
doing “survival” chores. Yeah. Right.
GET OVER IT KID. You’ll always be in the Posh Corps to everyone else
here.
Of course, for a nation like Mozambique in which
70% of 22.4 million people live in rural areas well outside the reach of industrial agriculture and mass food production
markets, accessible water sources are
absolutely crucial to the success of small-scale agricultural farms that feed entire
communities. Yet, Mozambique also ranks
third highest of all African countries to suffer from “recurrent climatic shocks”
which disrupt small-scale food production. As such, the World Food Program
reports that nearly 25% of the population in Mozambique suffers from “acute
food insecurity” at some point each year due to weather-related hazards. The
most food-insecure households, WFP continues, are located in the arid and
flood-prone areas of the south and central respectively.
Well. Wouldn't you know it. My village of
Mapinhane is located in the north of the southern province of Inhambane. Given
its geographic location (smack dab in the WFPs zone), suddenly it comes as no
surprise that extreme fluctuations between drought and torrential rains is a
very problematic, troublesome, yet normal reality for my neighbors and
community members here. The seasonal
drought happens every year. It’s turning all our corn brown. It’s causing my
garden to remain barren. The soil has transformed from its usual moist, red
softness into a sandy brown hardpan. Lamenting to my colleagues this last week
about how I sprouted only a single lonesome carrot out of my ENTIRE garden of
tomatoes, peppers, carrots, lettuce, beets, and squash (not even kidding, just ONE
CARROT), they erupted in laughter. Prof. Elodio at least attempted some
sympathy offering a “que pena!” (what a pity!) in-between his own incessant
giggling. Yet, despite offering my colleagues comic relief and posing more evidence
that I make the WORST Mozambican woman EVER, my predicament of a failed garden reflects
the greater predicament of Mozambicans at large. This time of the year is
called “tempo de fome” for a reason. And
given any ignorance of it, if I was poor and couldn't buy vegetables,
tangerines (and the rare banana) from the ladies at the market, I wouldn’t be
eating. Plain and simple. And what’s
worse, I’d be one of already millions of hungry people competing for incredibly
limited resources.
Humbling, right?
This issue of hunger and malnutrition has been
brought into stark clarity for me recently also because I just found out that
the Primary School with which I substitute taught for six weeks and continue to
volunteer at is about to lose funding for their school meal program. Their
sponsorship through Joint Aid Managament (JAM) places expiration dates on their
funding programs and as such, Escola Primaria de Mapinhane will lose its ability
to feed its 1,000 students during the school day as of August. As Joanna, an administrator,
personal friend, and self-proclaimed “mother” of the school explained to me,
she’s worried that with the loss of the school’s feeding program will come a simultaneous
deterioration of class attendance and student performance. Perhaps I’m stating
the obvious but when students are hungry the last thing they want or are able
to do is concentrate and learn to the best of their abilities. Indeed, oftentimes the school food program is
the only main meal some students will eat all day. Thus, the current feeding
program operates not only as a powerful incentive for students to come to
school, but also provide an opportunity to provide nutritional supplements that
they otherwise would not be getting.
Losing this ONE important resource could be
potentially devastating to students’ foundational skills in math, science, and
general literacy that’s imperative to Mapinhane’s criancas completing the primary
years of their education. The odds are already against them. As JAM notes, only
40% of Mozambican children at-large even reach the fifth grade.
Once Joanna told me about the situation she’s
facing, my ensuing questions (and desire for involvement) were endless. First, how big a role does JAM play in
supporting the current feeding program, and how much is the Primary School dependent
on JAM funding or is able to support itself? If it is in any way self-supporting,
is it working effectively? Second, what
can be done to postpone the support gap? What sources are available through
grants or other aid programs to continue the program in place? Is there any way
to find a temporary support structure to maintain the feeding program while a sustainable
solution can be found? And finally, what is the best sustainable
solution???
To start attempting to answer to the first question,
I had to do some digging into what JAM is really all about and understand its
objectives and implementations of its development philosophy. As I quickly discovered,
the Joint Aid Management (JAM) is a (moderate) faith-based NGO with the motto “helping
Africans help themselves” and operates throughout South Africa, Mozambique,
Angola, South Sudan, Rwanda, Ghana, and Nigeria. Despite having such geographic
coverage of the African continent however, their approach to aid programming
tends to concentrated on small-scale community development rather than approaching
change through policy development. In Mozambique, JAM’s primary campaign
revolves around the “Red Bowl” Program (which mass serves a “Fortified Blended
Food” or “soja” to school students including Mapinhane!) throughout Gaza,
Inhambane, Manica, and Sofala provinces. Moreover, JAM’s philosophy of “helping
Africans help themselves” approaches the reduction of short-term hunger by
promoting in addition the development of school gardens and low-cost feeding
programs reaching approximately 321,131 school children in total. On the surface, it seems that good, important
work is being done. But, already what troubles me most is the autonomy
question. It remains unclear despite JAM’s publications, just how frequently sponsored
schools are able to transition off of JAM program funding and become
self-sufficient. Or conversely, how
schools cope when funding is withdrawn, used up, or expires. The dependency of schools on JAM would be an
incredible detraction from the fulfillment of their motto to “help Africans
help themselves”… and given this motto I’m quite surprised that JAM hasn’t actually
evaluated their effectiveness in “graduating” schools from their nutrition
programs.
Secondly, the question of finding funding to “fill-the-gap”
caused by the expiration of JAM’s program in August is the next challenge. So
far I've done some power-mapping to brainstorm local, national, and
international organizations that are in a primary or secondary position to
support small farming and nutrition initiatives, and thus potentially cover the
continuation and further development of Mapinhane’s Primary School feeding program.
I've already sent off an email to JAM attempting to get in contact with the
regional coordinator for Mozambique but haven’t had any response yet. I’d like
to at least try to receive an extension of JAM funding to give us more time to
figure out a more long term solution. USAID,
the World Food Program, PEPFAR anti-HIV/AIDS funding, and grants from the
Public Affairs Office at the U.S. Embassy are some of my primary thoughts. I
have also discovered some local micro-credit loan offices in the neighboring town
of Vilankulos, which while always looking closed, should also be approached for
possible funding.
And finally, what’s the ultimate vision for a replacement
program, without JAM support? Ideally I’d like to continue and eventually
extend the trajectory of Joanna’s work. So far, the Primary School has the
materials to prepare and serve meals – this includes basic things like pots,
pans, and bowls. No need to reinvent the
wheel there. Moreover, Joanna told me that a small school garden does exist BUT
the size and productivity of it is marginal. Therefore, I am excited about the
thought of developing a school meal program that could implement the produce of
an expanded school garden. Just think! Students would learn how to grow the
very fruits and vegetables that could supplement their soja (and their own
health!). Filling tummies, boosting school attendance and performance.
The thought just lights me up. Capacity-building
101. I LOVE the idea.
But implementation… there’s the tricky part.
So here’s my new to-do list.
- Locate/apply for funding to continue the current "soja" meals and buy more time to develop a more long-term sustainable program
- Calculate the logistics of expanding the school farm – what type of crops to plant, the type of maintenance they would need, the access to water, the feasibility of low-maintenance irrigation...
- Identify counterparts in addition to Joanna - organize a community council
