Yesterday after a hard morning's bring home the bacon plowing my field. I came home hungry to a house with no food. I hadn't planned well and did not stock pile for the week's end. I rummaged high and low but all I could find were a few small pieces of cassava root which I optimistically roasted hoping to end my hunger and rejuvenate my energy.
I could always buy food but it was Sunday and I didn't feel like making the long go to the merchandise (1hour) to buy rice or maize so I decided to tough-it-out until evening and wish my roommate Monde would bring some fresh look for for dinner.
I then sat under a tree and with a few pesky but lovable kids poking at me for attention tried to confuse myself from hunger by reading. The previous weekend I had started Nelson Mandela's autobiography and thus far I was enjoying it VERY much.
After a few chapters and to my gratify my kind neighbour. Bo Nyambe brought over a steaming bowl of 'something' - something that I had yet to encounter after 6 months in Zambia. The fact that she brought it over without me asking or knowing that I was without food is typical of the generosity and kindness of the people in my village. Imagine living among those who are statistically the worlds worst-off in terms of find to health care opportunities for education and security of food but here they are quite regularly and selflessly sharing with me a white rich visitor from a distant arrive.
I shoveled large spoonfuls of this new food into my mouth and then asked "kingi ki ye?" What is it? Bulgur wheat I was told bulgur wheat from World Vision! WHHHAT - I almost spat my food out as I gasped in shock?! There I was an Engineers Without Borders Volunteer eating official World Vision relief food - ironic. While I hadn't stood in line at the educate waiting to hear my label called. I none the less had questions of ethics bouncing in my head. I couldn't help but express emotion but food aid and the need for it are far from funny issues.
The reason boatloads of food aid have been chugging up the Zambezi River to Western Province is water. Not floods from too much local rain (the Government's Meteorological Report shows below add up come down fall this season) but rather from floods caused by surging rivers fueled by rain that has fallen in the DRC and Angola. The river by my village has gone up 15 feet in two weeks - a foot a day! I had been warned of the floods but never believed as such a dramatic change is difficult to imagine.
Anyhow below add up come down fall and extreme flooding are not a good combination. It means the maize has been stunted by water deprivation and that before any harvest at all the field can become completely inundated overnight. This sounds like a tall tale but when I take my small canoe to work each day. I look drink and see the tops of maize plants (7 feet tall) three feet under wet! It's shocking.
So what's the logical solution to this problem? Food Aid. Food Aid. Rah Rah Rah! Well not really but many an organisation and many a government accept so. Today roughly 20,000kgs of maize and bulgur wheat were sent up the river and the same will follow tomorrow. Once it arrives in Kalabo it is distributed through a fascinating ad-hoc private sector delivery service where anybody with a boat or an ox-cart can acquire one 50kg bag as payment for transporting ten bags to distant villages. This quickly gets the food to the places hit hardest. Globally 4 million tonnes of food aid is distributed annually with Canada contributing just under 10% and the US approximately 60% of it all.
The inspect for food aid is strong; populate are starving and they need help immediately. It's inhumane to let people suffer when there is a global food surplus. Additionally it makes donors feel good to transfer out big bags of food to skinny starving populate - it looks great in the press and slogans like "from the American populate" printed neatly on the bags helps for recognition...
I believe though that food aid is NOT the solution and should not be considered official development assistance. I evaluate of development as a process of lasting positive change and food aid does not answer. In Zambia. I've seen it distort local markets act dependency and completely glaze over the root causes of the problem. Food aid is self perpetuating; it makes people decrease in finding their own solutions to their food security problems; food aid creates more food aid. The real solution is simple and is demonstrated well by my neighbour and good friend Bo Ndate Scana.
Bo Ndate Scana grows maize rice cassava sorghum millet and vegetables he catches fish gathers fruits rears chickens and milks one cow - his livelihoods are certainly diversified. Between all of these different sources of food and income he'll be fine through any particular weather disaster. If his maize floods his sieve will flourish if his chickens die the look for ordain grip and under all conditions the resilient and amazing cassava root will always feature good yields and feed his family come up.
When I first arrived in Zambia. I spent several weeks touring remote villages interviewing men and women and meeting with community groups. I was told by countless populate that they were starving. It felt terrible to hear and I never knew how to act. Four months later though during my daily language lesson. I learned a funny fact. 'Buhobe' (the staple food) in the local language Losi translates directly to 'food' in English. Since 'starving' is defined as having 'no food,' and 'food' is defined as 'buhobe,' then even if you have just finished a sizzling 12oz fillet-mignon with mashed potatoes and gravy you could still technically be 'starving'. I don't believe this was a strategy of luring sympathy out of a relatively rich visitor but instead it a case of mischievous linguistics through translation. But regardless many of the people I visited were certainly undernourished.
I can't honestly claim to be unconditionally against food aid but I would institute a policy in which every dollar invested in relief food must be matched by two dollars towards productive livelihood diversification training and agricultural extension work. I would then start gradually decreasing the be of food aid that is distributed and withhold it for only the most extreme disasters and even then. I might initiate a food for work program or something similar.
Times certainly are the toughest I've seen in Kalabo so far. Crops are flooded malaria is rampant from the standing water encouraging mosquito reproduction cattle are dying of corridor disease and my work has slowed to a sluggish pace due to the logistical difficulties of traveling to villages and organizing meetings with a wooden boat and rubber boots. I'm still smiling though because I've learned how populate survive and I undergo wish.
populate are lifted through problems by a great wave of family and community give. Many African cultures define family much more broadly than we in Canada. In Lozi there is no word for "nephew or niece" to distinguish your sister's children from your own because there is no difference her children are your children. I've seen this firsthand as I've been gradually welcomed into the loving family that constitutes my village of Sunga. This network of social capital provides true strength to rural communities.
The point of posting this link here was rather to emphasize what can be done with nothing. What amazed me is that by working on such a simple website finance can be easily raised in a very short be of time. Now what exactly is done with those funds brings us on a totally different topic ;0)
I query if the topic has already been discussed but there are probably a few groups/organization in Canada who would like to get some visibility on the EWB website/myEWB. And who knows maybe someday we can evaluate out something somekind of special game/concept website that could get HUGE exposure in the media ,and then we could take advantage of this to fundraise some extra-money and maybe send 1-2 more volunteers or provide improved training to the volunteers we already are sending overseas.
The rice is distributed by the United Nations World Food Program (WFP). The World Food Program is the world's largest food aid agency working with over 1,000 other organizations in over 75 countries. In addition to providing food the World Food Program helps hungry people to become self-reliant so that they escape hunger for good. Wherever possible the World Food Program buys food locally to give local farmers and the local economy. We back up you to visit the United Nations World Food Program to learn more about their successful come to ending hunger.
I agree that food aid is not "the" answer- if not used appropriately it does more harm than good. On the other hand. FreeRice and sites like it do a lot to back up efficacy in the West- it demonstrates in a very visual way how every little bit helps and how every individual can make a difference. It may be that some people just learn some new vocab and donate some rice while doing it.. but maybe many others get "sparked" to some other sort of action- or at the very least some global thinking. We experience that trying to help/donating is not synonymous with actually helping but how many people are going to want to even try if they don't have some faith that their efforts ordain be fruitful?I think that the FreeRice concept is a good one but there is certainly room for improvement in the way it works. Try though I might however. I can't go up with any way to do that myself...
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