hunger

It is hard to think about being hungry. I grew up on a farm where you always had food. So when we hear talk of a famine the worst some people have ever seen here, what does that mean?

*children with kwashiorkor (a form of malnutrition that occurs when there is not enough protein in the diet)

*mama's walking over 2 hours to ask for food because they have none

*women digging for small bitter root grass in the fields to cook for their children

*men leaving for big cities looking for work, leaving their wife/wives and children home with nothing, gone for months sending home as little as 10,000 t shillings (8 dollars)

*no government help coming

*no harvest this past year, little the previous year, and nothing growing now

These are our neighbors, people we see walking the roads every day. As we drive by they smile as they carry buckets of water or firewood on their heads. You ask them how they are they say 'we are good' but my kids are hungry.

So we have gotten some funds, from a famine relief group in the states called IDES. These next weeks some school kids, widows, and pregnant mama's will get food. How do you decide who, how do you say no to some of them? We work through the local community groups who know their neighborhoods and the most needy, they make the decisions. Our staff will be helping with the maize flour transport and distribution.

This can be a sad place, it is a hard life, yet they melt you with their smiles, it is Africa.