World, Africa, Malawi Printer friendly version
December 5th, 2002
WWW.GLOBALAWARE.ORG
By Dr. LESLIE JERMYN © 2002
leslie@GlobalAware.org
Women chant, dance, clap and sing whilst others keep time pounding
maize using large mortars and pestles. This is a picture postcard scene of African
celebration as the women prepare for the fertility rites of young girls coming
of age. But the women of Maiwazal village in Dedza district, Malawi, have little
to celebrate. On closer examination, the realities of this idyllic scene become
apparent. The mortars contain only husks of maize and the bulk of the feast
will come from wild beans. The beans require a day of boiling and 3 days of
soaking to extract their poison and make them edible if not enjoyable.
Drought in the southern cone of Africa caused starvation and malnutrition
earlier this year. Hardship peaked in February and March at the end of what
should have been the rainy season. Failed crops resulted in dearth at what is
usually a time of plenty. Despite food shortages, subsistence farmers survived
on shrivelled maize heavily supplemented with wild beans, roots and sorghum.
This has seen them through to the planting season (September to November). Those
that have seeds will plant as the first rains come, but harvest is not until
February or March of next year and village food stores are already dangerously
low or nonexistent. Last season’s failed crop will continue to cause hardship
as the country runs out of its remaining food resources waiting for the next
unpredictable harvest.
Unfortunately for Malawi, most adults look healthy enough. Hastings Samute of
the UN World Food program explains the dilemma of the few journalists who have
passed through to document and report on the famine, “A hungry person
does not look any different to somebody who has just eaten.” He adds that
he has heard too many people comment, “It’s not like Ethiopia.”
Some children are suffering long term malnutrition with the hallmark signs of
emaciation coupled with swollen bellies, but most hunger is invisible. Samute
explains the “media dilemma”. “Famines, in the eyes of the
public, are tragic scenes of hundreds of living skeletons gathered together
to await the mercy of food aid or death. The shocking images from Ethiopia in
the 1980s set the standard and anything less gets no notice.” The children
suffering from marasmus malnutrition provide the expected media images but many
have extremely dangerous kwashiorkor malnutrition where water retention causes
swelling and children can look chubby or even fat.
Despite the lack of visual drama, indicators of impending disaster are not hard
to find. Interspersed with the reed huts of villages stand smaller reed constructions
raised from the ground, and at this time of year, these larders are usually
full of maize. But throughout Malawi this is not the case. A handful of shrivelled,
underdeveloped cobs are all families have to take them to the next harvest in
March, if there is one. Hospitals are the single guaranteed source for nightmarish
Ethiopian scenes that grab media attention. In Lilongwe Central Hospital Children’s
Ward C, the sound of wailing babies is incessant. Tiny shrivelled children,
their skin loose on their bodies, cry pitifully whilst resisting food and regurgitating
what little their mothers manage to feed them. Marie Sassolas, a nutritionist
for Action against Hunger walks between the beds persuading and even begging
each mother to force her child to swallow. Marie Sassolas explains “the
children lose the will to live. If the mothers do not force them to eat they
will die.” Those that can be persuaded to eat the highly nutritional food
quickly are usually safe, but the long term effects of malnutrition, such as
brain damage, stunted growth and a lifelong susceptibility to illness, will
likely stay with them. Sassolas is frustrated, “My job should be completely
unnecessary. It should never get to this stage.”
In Maiwazal village, away from the singing, Benita Mapulesi sits in the shadow of her hut with her child on her lap. She is visibly happy. The child is the youngest of 5 and she says Mustaph is “the gift her husband left her” before he passed away last year. Benita Mapulesi is reluctant to remove the scarf that covers her head and on doing so reveals the stump of her right ear. Back in March, at the height of the first wave of hunger, she ran out of food. The entire village was hungry and no one could spare anything, “they did not have enough for themselves.” “He was dying,” she says, cradling her son. “He cried for hours, for days. I am not a thief but I stole.” She stole a few cobs from her cousin’s field. He cut off half her ear as punishment. Benita Mapulesi is still smiling as she rocks her child and recounts her story, “I expected him to kill me.”
In the first half of this month, James Morris, the UN Secretary General's Special Envoy for the humanitarian crisis in southern Africa, conducted a fact-finding tour of affected countries in the region including Lesotho, Swaziland, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. His goal was to assess what can and should be done to relieve suffering now and prevent a deepening of the crisis affecting some 13 million people. To date, the UN has received only US$138 million for its Southern Africa Appeal – a mere 23% of the US$611 million they have called for. They are critically short of both food and non-food items such as medicines and medical/sanitation supplies.
Sister Brigget Moreta runs the Mtengowanthenga Carmelite Mission
in Kasungu District. She predicts that “the desperation we saw in February
and March will be back in November.” Incidents of amputations and murder
over food were widespread throughout Malawi. Sister Moreta has introduced an
emergency under 5’s feeding at the mission and the anticipated 300 to
400 has swelled to over 1000 mothers with their children. The sister moves slowly
along the long lines of mothers trying to pick out the extreme cases of need.
Malnutrition culminates in many other illnesses; diarrhoea, malaria and infections
are all on the rise as people’s resistance is lowered by hunger. “They
are all in need, they are all hungry and we do not even have enough food for
the under 5’s.”
By the end of the day most of the babies have been weighed and measured and
their mothers have been given a small bag of maize flour and sent home. Sister
Moreta leaves the last thirty women huddled in the shade of the mission wall
with their fragile bundles awaiting their turn. The mission itself had run out
of maize and she had to go to Kasungu town to find more to distribute. On her
return, the sister pulls the few sacks of maize from the back of her car and
sits down on them tired and clearly in despair. “What will we do in until
March?” she demands of anyone who happens to be listening.
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