Bashi jiri a bana (Moringa trees are done!)

August 21, 2011 –


So I hoped for the best and got the worst. The matrone had some men/boys (15, 16 years old) come to her field to aerate and weed. I saw them doing it but didn’t think too much about it...until the next day when I had a terrible thought. I walked around out in the field to find that all but 4 of the 20 bashi yiri trees that we planted had been weeded. Now these guys didn’t know but two things bother me about this. ONE...by each tree that was planted a stick about 2 feet high was posted in the ground to mark the spot. How easy would it have been for the matrone to tell these guys to watch out for the sticks and the plants that look like “this” (and point out the trees themselves which were already 8 or so inches high) and not to dig/rip them up with the weeds. TWO...how could these guys not look at these 4 rows of 5 sticks in each and not think to themselves, “there’s a pattern here, I wonder what it could mean”...and then ask!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! I was so mad to say the least. The matrone said, oh well, a bana. They’re done. What’s the frickin point.

I sat with my matrone with 3 patients at the clinic. 3 sick children. All appear to be suffering from malnutrition. This time of the year... Then the mother of one of these sick children was also not doing so well herself. Her baby is 17 months old and she is pregnant. Of course this is causing her to be malnourished. She is still breast feeding so the pregnancy is sucking nutrients from her thus also taking nutrients away from the 17 month old. It’s a vicious cycle. That’s why they encourage birth spacing (waiting a minimum of 2 years in between children). Not only as a form of birth control but this way you don’t find yourself in this perdicament.

I just found out yesterday that 3 young children (between 1 and 3) in my village have died over the past 2 months. All from malnutrition. Unfortunately the worst of “hunger” season hasn’t come yet. With rainy season that puts most small villages in a time between times. They have planted now but have nothing to harvest until October or November. In the meantime, they eat toh (pronounced toe). That gives them two options corn based to, or millet based to. Either one is filling, cheap but has no nutritional value whatsoever. They do not have the money to eat meat, fruits and vegetables. It’s a sad thing. I see signs of malnutrition in so many children.