Food for thought

I (Libby) had my own African adventure this afternoon. I went with the pilot and another passenger to take maize to a village that has severe food shortages. We took 1,000 kilos of maize in the Cessna Caravan (for those of you who know about planes). The village was in the middle of nowhere (see pictures just before we landed) and the whole village was waiting to greet us. We get stared at a lot in Dodoma, but this was much worse; they rarely see white people, yet alone white women. Each family was given a small quantity of maize, which has to last them until MAF can fly in more maize. It was really hard eating the meal they had prepared for us while being watched by pot-bellied children and women who are so hungry they are searching in the dust for any spilled grains of maize.

I felt quite helpless really, hunger is such a huge problem. The next rains are not until November and so the next possible harvest is not until next May. How do these people survive with so little - mentally and physically. The children loved my digital camera and were thrilled to see pictures of themselves. I felt a bit like a famine tourist. It's very difficult to reconcile the two worlds: the world of plenty and the world of poverty. I came home to see my rather too well nourished children waiting for me at the hanger and then had pizza for tea. It's all so surreal, my mind cannot cope with the extremes of existence that I know exist. Yes MAF and other charities are helping, but they really barely scratch the surface. Last year at home, make poverty history, the G8 summit, etc were really just newspaper headlines and slogans, now it is reality. Maybe not my reality, but a reality I can't ignore.