The families did not come in to market this day, but local villagers informed my survey assistants – Abdoulaye & Moussa – that they knew the roads to each house.
Abdoulaye & Moussa:
So off we head - driving another 3 km to find the first hut – in the end, the terrain was so bad I had to park my truck and walk the last ½ kilometre. As I walk through the fields, I notice two men and a child on a donkey walking towards the village market – strapped to the donkey are four 25L plastic containers. Abdoulaye informs me that they live behind the ‘mountain’ (hill) and are walking (at least 7 kilometres) to the market to buy their water for the week as there is no well close to where they live.
This first family that I meet are two brothers - living in two huts nestled in a circle of bare ground in their field. They are recipients of the grain aid program of this rainy season due to the famine last year.
Two Fulani men – recipients & 2 Djarma neighbours:
Their children peeking out of the second hut:
As I conduct the survey I realize that this family could define both the word ‘impoverished’ and the concept of ‘being caught in a cycle of poverty’. Because of the grain aid this year, their family was able to survive the rainy season, yet even with the reduced price grain (they paid just over 1/3 of market price for a 100kg sack of millet per month), the season was difficult. At times they sold a portion of their sack to these two Djarma neighbours; sharing among the four households – receiving less in order to afford any.
In the words of the two men as head of the household:
‘Those among our neighbours who did not receive the grain aid had to leave their fields. Without your aid, we too would have been forced to leave our huts and our field. The grain aid program was like your team saw someone walking on the road, picked them up and drove them directly to their destination!’
Impoverished
Then when they share about their harvest of this year, they informed me that it was as scarce as the previous year. The son of one older man planted the field, but then left – moving into Niamey for work because there was no food. The rest of the family members (children) were sent to neighbouring fields to work for money so that the household could buy food. As a result, their field was not cultivated and they had little harvest to reap. Because of this, they will now need to leave to find food. I pray that come next rainy season, they can return in the hopes for next year’s crop.
Cycle of Poverty
As I stand in their fields, I gaze across a barren and dry land. How anything grows in this sand is beyond me.
How these people eek out their existence and grow millet crops in this desolation is further beyond me. The hot wind blowing around me is as parched and dry as the land under my feet. And it feels like the desolation is blowing across my soul as hot and parched as the wind I feel on my face. My soul aches for these people; though they are grateful for the help of this past year, I wonder if all we have done is delayed the inevitable. With no food for this year – and aid not as readily available, because on a whole, Niger is no longer in a famine due to a decent crop harvest in most of the country – will this family now be forced to leave their homes and fields like those around them?
Abdoulaye, Moussa and I return to my truck and head back to the market place. It takes a bit longer due to a disagreement over a fork in the road . . . I was right – and we had to double back once we hit a sandy gorge that I refused to drive through. Eventually we arrive back at the market and here we meet a new guide – from the market place we head off another 7 km further into the bush. A trip that takes 30 minutes! (Roughly travelling 4 km/hour??!?) This household is 20 km North East of Niamey – the recipients the furthest out . . . who walked 20km into the city once/month to retrieve their grain aid sack!
As I park my truck to walk through their field, I count a cluster of 7 huts – living here is a family consisting of approximately 17 people; the grain aid recipient and his wife, his two grown sons and their families.
Also riding in my truck for this trip are two older men: the village chief and another village elder. They have travelled out with us to give their condolences to a neighbouring family – while at the market, they heard of a death in this other household.
While the two older men along with Abdoulaye & Moussa head off further into the bush to greet the family in mourning, I join my guide, his brother and his father in one of the huts for the survey. Before I can start, the one brother talks with me about the health teaching I did as part of the grain distribution. He makes the Oral Rehydration Solution for his children each time there are sick with diarrhea or vomiting – and it brings them health. He has also walked around hut to hut in his surrounding area to teach his neighbours how to make and use the ORS!
At the end of the survey, I ask if I can take a photo – and the family scurries around from hut to hut trying to find enough clothes for the previously naked children!
It is now back to the market and here I buy us lunch – though we do not eat here because of the crowds (Fulani do not eat in front of others who are not eating). The food will wait until we arrive at the next household, where we can sit apart for a few minutes to eat.
My truck has again gained passengers, this time, 2 women and the village chief in the cab plus some young men and children bouncing around the bumpy roads in the back. Most of the passengers are heading back to Niamey from the market. They realize that I will be stopping for an interview – but are either content to wait, happy to not walk; or perhaps despite the delay, the truck ride is still faster! Along the way, I stop to drop the young men off in another small village which is roughly en route. This last household takes a while to find – no one is quite sure which desert road to take and we drive around for a bit. It seems they know where the family lives, just not necessarily how to get there from where we started.
We finally reach our destination; however, I am surprised to discover that for this family 'living in their field' is more literal than I am accustomed to. Normally, this refers to a household that has left Niamey and built their straw hut on their land, on the edge of their field.
There is no hut. Below you can see the wind break they have built with a mat to construct a kitchen for cooking. I can only assume that they sleep on the ground under a tree.
After we arrive and greet the family, the truck inhabitants immediately divide into two groups – my passengers to sit with the family, while Abdoulaye, Moussa and I head off to eat. I eat while sitting on the corner of a mat with my back to a crowd of curious children, meanwhile the other two head further away out of sight. Culture dictates that men and women cannot eat together on the same mat, so they have walked away . . . but they walked further out of sight, because the village chief is related somehow to Moussa in a familial relationship which in their culture deems that Moussa cannot eat in front of him (the chief).
Lunch is now a cold meal of fried igname (potato) covered in a hot spice sauce. As it is cold, it is a meal which I know is quite likely to cause me stomach issues in a few days. But, aside from the cookies in my bag, it is all I have.
Setting up for the Survey:
Once the survey is complete, we all pile back into the truck and head back into town. It has been a long day – physically and emotionally. We have been out in the village for 6.5 hours. Due to the distances – I drove 67 km round and about the desert/bush – I interviewed only 3 families! Emotionally, it was a long day, for I could lay a safe bet that today I met some of, if not the poorest, of this village’s grain recipients. Though most of the villagers reaped a small harvest – due to late rain or bugs eating their crop – those closer in to the capital seem to fare a bit better as they sell milk from their cows in order to buy food. Yet conversely, I also know from other surveyants that selling milk is not a sure gain – some days no one wants to buy milk. And now, because of the famine, many cows have died, thus reducing their income potential.
As in the case of the first family, I wonder how they all survive from year to year. How will they not only survive this year following a famine, but also try to recover their tenuous 'pre-famine economic position'? That economic position, though better than where they are now, was still one of poverty. And even if they do recover, how do they move forward beyond the 'cycle of poverty' in which they are trapped?
1 comment:
Wow, simply unbelievable. Thanks for posting this and opening my eyes a little bit more!
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