What does it mean to be hungry?
We often find ourselves saying that we are hungry or starving so the solution (unless you are on a diet!) is to head straight to the fridge/biscuit jar/local shop in order to get something to eat. Fair enough, it is relatively easy and to be honest we are probably not even that hungry and most definitely not starving.
Here it is a bit different. I know I have mentioned before that it is the hungry season when people are waiting for the new harvest but I have been doing some investigating to find out what really goes on. Most Malawians live from the land and in December they plant a lot of maize. My night watch man was forever off miles away to tend to his garden. I assumed that this maize, once ready was harvested and then kept by the local farmers (just about everyone!) to last them through the season. Apparently not. They sell most of the maize to the government through a company called ADMARC. That is fair enough because it is quite difficult to store the maize correctly and people just don’t have the space. You would assume that with the profits made, most would be kept so they could buy the maize back when it is needed. No, not so!!
If people have money in their pockets, (hardly anyone has a bank account) then it tends not to burn a hole for that long! The money is quickly spent on various things with most people relying on their small incomes to keep up with buying the maize when their own supplies have ran out.
Meanwhile the government is busy calculating the amount of maize that has been taken in and the amount that they think the people will need. Last year was a good harvest so there was supposedly a lot of maize left over. The government then sells this surplus maize to other countries who don’t have enough – in Malawi most if not all goes to Zimbabwe (funny that they don’t have much maize now that there are a lack of farmers in the country!) Anyway the whole system is supposed to work fairly smoothly and if the calculations are correct then no one should be left without maize, provided that they can pay the government for it.
However, that is before corruption. The papers are full of stories of missing tonnes of maize that simply just can’t disappear. No one knows where it goes but it has gone and in reality the people are hungry, perhaps even starving.
There is a real shortage of maize and I really see it in Rumphi. People are constantly waiting outside the ADMARC building at the bottom of the road, often for days, with the hope of a delivery of maize. And when the delivery eventually comes, my god it is chaos. People are desperate. They have no food left and money is really tight. The number of children admitted to the local hospital with malnutrition is rising as are the number of HIV/AIDS adults who need to eat a balanced diet for their drugs to have the best effect. The worrying thing is that there is still at least another month before the new crop is ready, especially in the north where the rains start a little bit later.
The lucky ones are the ones who had the foresight to keep some of their maize in stock, either individuals or companies, as they themselves won’t be hungry and they can then charge ridiculous prices for their maize at the local market. The people who have jobs and earn a decent wage (not that many) have no choice but to buy the expensive maize but for the rest of them, they just have to wait and hope…..
Here it is a bit different. I know I have mentioned before that it is the hungry season when people are waiting for the new harvest but I have been doing some investigating to find out what really goes on. Most Malawians live from the land and in December they plant a lot of maize. My night watch man was forever off miles away to tend to his garden. I assumed that this maize, once ready was harvested and then kept by the local farmers (just about everyone!) to last them through the season. Apparently not. They sell most of the maize to the government through a company called ADMARC. That is fair enough because it is quite difficult to store the maize correctly and people just don’t have the space. You would assume that with the profits made, most would be kept so they could buy the maize back when it is needed. No, not so!!
If people have money in their pockets, (hardly anyone has a bank account) then it tends not to burn a hole for that long! The money is quickly spent on various things with most people relying on their small incomes to keep up with buying the maize when their own supplies have ran out.
Meanwhile the government is busy calculating the amount of maize that has been taken in and the amount that they think the people will need. Last year was a good harvest so there was supposedly a lot of maize left over. The government then sells this surplus maize to other countries who don’t have enough – in Malawi most if not all goes to Zimbabwe (funny that they don’t have much maize now that there are a lack of farmers in the country!) Anyway the whole system is supposed to work fairly smoothly and if the calculations are correct then no one should be left without maize, provided that they can pay the government for it.
However, that is before corruption. The papers are full of stories of missing tonnes of maize that simply just can’t disappear. No one knows where it goes but it has gone and in reality the people are hungry, perhaps even starving.
There is a real shortage of maize and I really see it in Rumphi. People are constantly waiting outside the ADMARC building at the bottom of the road, often for days, with the hope of a delivery of maize. And when the delivery eventually comes, my god it is chaos. People are desperate. They have no food left and money is really tight. The number of children admitted to the local hospital with malnutrition is rising as are the number of HIV/AIDS adults who need to eat a balanced diet for their drugs to have the best effect. The worrying thing is that there is still at least another month before the new crop is ready, especially in the north where the rains start a little bit later.
The lucky ones are the ones who had the foresight to keep some of their maize in stock, either individuals or companies, as they themselves won’t be hungry and they can then charge ridiculous prices for their maize at the local market. The people who have jobs and earn a decent wage (not that many) have no choice but to buy the expensive maize but for the rest of them, they just have to wait and hope…..
posted by Caroline Pitcairn at
2:48 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home