"Tempo de fome," a time of hunger

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.

1. Locate/apply for funding to continue the current "soja" meals and buy more time to develop a more long-term sustainable program
2. 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...
3. Identify counterparts in addition to Joanna - organize a community council

Let the hard work begin!!!