In the Western world, climate change is an inconvenience. We try and wash our cars less or allow our yard to go brown. We turn up the air conditioning in the summer and buy more layers to get us through the colder winter months. We can see the consequences of climate change happening as polar bears on YouTube float away on melting ice caps. Some of us have even felt it through the West Coast forest fires and scorching Southern heat. In Africa, however, climate change is impacting how people live (or die) on a daily basis. The increasing heat dries up river beds at alarming rates and the colder winters can be felt significantly with every drop in degree. Despite what many may think- Africa gets cold. During the winter temperatures can drop close to freezing making pneumonia one of the largest causes of death amongst children and the elderly in higher elevations- because a winter coat from the second hand market (which was likely donated by a kind American family) costs more than a week’s worth of maize flour (the staple food). At the height of the cold season in Malawi, around late July, we were in an upland village (situated about 4,000 ft above sea level) screening HIV/AIDS movies with a partner organization – UTU Africa. Because our mobile video shows use projectors - they require darkness. Our audience, mostly elementary aged children, sat around waiting for the sunset patiently. Malawian sunsets are almost always comprised of vibrant hues of pink and red – so I did not mind waiting; but as the sky dimmed you could see the children begin to huddle for warmth. Like penguins in the Arctic, they nestled together into an interwoven mass of children. Helpless, I offered my chitenje to two boys who seemed the worst dressed for the occasion... but the other 280 would have to shiver through the films. While I felt bad for keeping in the cold, I had to remember that they are used to this- they spend winters huddled in smoke filled kitchens to keep warm and use their school uniforms for extra blanket layering at night.Our video was not making the climate colder... the children would freeze through the winter no mater how their time was spent. For the children of the upland villages – climate change means pneumonia. Malawi’s lakeshore, falling at another extreme, seems to hold weather in more acute states. For the past few weeks we have been working with staff to collect food security interviews which include seasonal calendars – asking villagers to draw out what happens in the course of a year (planting, harvesting, rainfall, disease, hunger...). According to these lineal maps – the rainy season overlaps with the windy seasonm causing fishing to end for several months. The villagers say that fish (their one regular source of protein) can only be had when the waves are calm enough to not capsize their tiny log canoes – and in more recent years several fisherman have been lost in desperation to the Lake. The rains also come in such massive loads that the village now marks ‘flooding season’ on their calendars – in anticipation of washed away bridges and swamped maize fields. Going to the other extreme, study participants also marked half of the year with ‘no water available’. Already in Usisya the taps are running dry which means that until the rains come in late November – people will be carrying water from the lake. Most people are situated close to the lake, so the trek is not terribly far – but without the means to treat their water consistently- water born disease will begin to spread. 'Cholera' was marked on all the calendars to begin in December and ‘funeral season’ will begin shortly after. For the lakeshore villages – climate change means flooding and disease. Across all villages, November to February will be the most challenging time in Malawi. Layered across the calendars, this will be the time when school fees are due, when crops need to be planted, when farming inputs need purchased, when their stores will be empty, when food will need to be purchased, and when the ‘hungry season’ is to happen. This year will be particularly bad as the rains came late and in massive flooding quantities last year – causing stores to be low months too early. Through focus group discussion, we asked villagers what they will do when there is no food this December- their coping mechanisms will be selling any assets they have (clothes, furniture, goats...) and eating fewer meals. Some families, however, do not have assets as we are beginning to learn through household surveys. Houses with 15 people have 2 beds, and some subsistence farming families only have one hoe. I can't even imagine trying to plant enough maize to feed a family for an entire year using one hoe. There are no tractors, no horses to pull ploughs, and no local markets to supplement failed crops. In Malawi- climate change and poverty means hunger. Nkhata Bay has been deemed Food Secure according to the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee (MVAC). This means that the people marking ‘hungry season’ on their seasonal calendars and already eating one meal a day will not receive food aid this year. The research we are conducting- mentioned briefly here – is an attempt to prove that there is already hunger and that if WFP and MVAC do not supply food – people will not survive. We hope in the next week to wrap up and analyze our findings, which will then be shared in a plea to bring food aid to Nkhata Bay. The climate is changing and it is being felt daily and massively in Malawi and in the villages which we serve. I hope that in years to come people can learn the value planting trees and the power of drought resistant agriculture. For now, I just hope to mitigate its impacts through the simple task of giving voiceless villagers a chance to be heard- and that maize will be deliver to get them through the coming year.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Bonnie HarveyCurrently working in northern Malawi as Programs and Evaluations Coordinator for Temwa Archives
June 2019
|