Fighting For Food

Steve and I have started a morning program. Monday through Friday from 9:00am to 1:00pm about thirty children from the ages of 2 to 7 come to the clinic and we practice numbers, letters, and writing. All of these children do not attend school because their families cannot afford to pay the small fee required by public schools. We have asked their parents to pack them something to eat during the time they are with us. Some children bring little plastic pails filled/half full/almost empty with steamed cassava (a root tuber similar to potatoes), potatoes, matooke (steamed and then mashed plantains); some are lucky enough to bring these foods with a little sauce made from mashed beans or tomatoes put on top, many, however, do not bring anything. When it is snack time everyone, whether or not they have food, goes out to the picnic tables. Those who have food try to eat as much of it as possible while those who didn’t bring any try to steal/beg as much as possible from them. There is a continual lull of children’s voices saying “mpa …mpa” – “give me … give me.” Often I will catch one of the children with his hands in another child’s pail. Siblings often share one pail. One day a group of siblings did not finish their meal at snack time. When all of the kids realized there was food left chaos and pandemonium broke out. The oldest girl (not the one who owned the pail) tried to take it and equally distribute the food between everyone, however, one boy wanted more than she was willing to give and tried to steal all the food. The day ended with every child running furiously after one boy who tried to steel the food because he was hungry, eventually the oldest girl Nabuuma body slammed him to the ground and distributed what little was left to her siblings. On average those kids who don’t bring food get enough mouthfuls from their friends and manage to stay active during the second half of the program. Some end up eating the chucks of food that fall off the tables on the porch. All of the children pick up the unripe mangos that have fallen off the mango trees and eat those to fill their bellies. Often I find the younger kids crying because they are hungry. It is unbelievably hard to watch.
These children go hungry because their parents are unable to feed them more than once a day. Often not only are the parents unable to feed the children more than once a day, but they are unable to provide a nutritious well balanced meal. This means that all of these children and the majority of their peers in the village are malnourished. The majority of what these children and their families eat consist of staple foods like cassava, posho (mash potato like substance made from corn flower), matooke, potatoes, or rice with a small amount of sauce on top usually consisting of dried fish, beans, or ground peanuts. Having only one meal a day is particularly problematic for children because they have small stomachs and cannot eat enough to stustain themselves in one meal. It is recommended to feed small children five or six well balanced meals a day. A well balanced meal includes a staple food as well as a protien rich food and vitamin/mineral rich food. Obviously these children are barely receiving enough starch to sustain them through twenty-four hours let alone the extra vitamins and minerals they need to grow and develop properly. Most of the children show signs of Kwashiokor (a specific type of malnutrition associated with children who receive enough calories to get them through the day but lack the essential helper foods that contain protein and vitamins). All of these children and their peers show signs of kwashiorkor they have light colored patchy hair or don’t have hair at all, swollen bellies that look a lot like those of overweight middle aged American men, sores and peeling skin, and swollen cheeks, hands, and feet. Even if the children do not show signs of kwashiorkor show signs of general malnutrition. They are small for their age, weak, get tired often, have bacterial infections growing on their scalps and faces (a sign of a weak immune system), have bad teeth, and have sores on their faces and body. While it is rare to see the type of malnutrition known as Marasmus it does occur. Marasmus is when a child does not receive enough of any type of food even staple foods. Overall being malnourished means that these children get sick more often and more severely, are more likely to develop slowly, have slower brain function, have poor vision, bruise easily, are likely to have bleeding gums, nosebleeds, and diarrhea.
These families can not afford to feed their children properly for many reasons. Two of the most prevalent reasons are lack of education, money, and land. Lack of education about and understanding of the family planning options available, as well as lack of funds to buy these options, leads to extremely large families. From the information we have gathered from our primary school students the average family has six children. Country wide the population is growing by 6% a year. The majority of Ugandans are subsistence farmers. This means that they produce all of what they need on their own land, many of the farmers in Ddegeya don’t even touch money on a regular basis. If you think of a plot of land owned by one person that then is cut in two as the population doubles and then is divided into four as the population doubles again and then is cut into eight as the population doubles again you soon realize that Uganda can not support such rapid population growth. Now think of the average farmer. Many farmers own small plots of land and when they keep having more and more children what that land produces is divided into smaller and smaller portions. By the time the farmer has four children there is not enough produced for each person to have three full meals a day. Let alone worrying about having three well balanced meals a day. The second reason why many children do not have well balanced meals is because their families do not grow foods rich in vitamins and minerals like carrots, leafy greens, and tomatoes. These are not common crops because they require constant watering (which is hard because that means you have to carry the water from the well to you land which is potentially more then a mile away and then water every day) and pesticides which are expensive.
Steve and I have come up with several ways to combat the malnutrition that the morning program kids are experiencing. First, we have planted a field about half the size of a soccer field of peanuts. Hopeful we will harvest over 30 kilos of peanuts and be able to feed each of these kids enough peanut butter to fulfill their protein requirement everyday. We are also growing beans, corn, cabbage, tomatoes, green peppers, leafy greens, onions, and eggplant. All of this produce will be given to the children to bring home; hopefully, this will increase variety in their diets. In addition, we have several people sending us children’s chewable multi-vitamins which we plan to give to each child in the morning program everyday.