Food Security

When submitting my Peace Corps application and accepting the offer to come to West Africa, I had images of what I might find when I got here and general ideas of how my life might change.  I know now as I am at the very beginning of service that what my expectations and stereotypes were are nothing of what reality here actually is. Sure, it’s ‘African Hot,’ I sweat like I’ve never sweat before (it’s sort of like living in a sauna) and hope to never sweat like this again, dirt is a general and permanent condition, and eating rice all-day, everyday is not enjoyable or nutritious. Being the only white person within 20K, I am a celebrity, a celebrity without the perks of V.I.P. invitations, great meals, red carpets, or beautiful clothing. My perks come ‘African style,’ when sad all I have to do is find a child; their happiness is contagious and radiating.  There’s something infectious about riding my bike across the African desert and having 50 small boys, dressed in rags, abandon their soccer game, just to run full speed towards me screaming my name, to simply shake my hand. It’s a starting theory that there are so many kids, not just because kids come as Allah wants them to come, but because the kids keep everyone happy. But even the adults seem to live unnoticing of their surroundings, my mom laughs constantly, at almost nothing! She’s starting to wear off on me, I have some hard moments where I would give anything to be in a grocery store or simply spend time with all of you at home, but I also have moments where I couldn’t image myself anywhere but here. Africa’s starting to get to me.

Hearing facts about people without food globally, when I was in America, is very different than actually living it. Here in The Gambia, the rains last year were terrible and the crop production was something like 75% below average (don’t quote me I don’t remember the exact statistic). The seasons are not only defined by weather, they are defined by hunger. In New England, we have spring, summer, fall, and winter. Here there is the wet season, the dry season, but also the hunger season. As the rains are suppose to begin any minute, and already have TWICE!!, we are in full blown hunger season. It’s not unusual for families in my village to miss one or two meals per day. And it’s not only my village, although I live in the Central River Region which is historically the poorest region in The Gambia. When I first started missing meals, I thought it might only be my family but was confused because that’s not the way society works here. If one family has little to eat, other families will help feed them. So, with the help of an English speaker in my village I conducted ‘compound-to-compound’ interviews with each family. I asked basic baseline survey analysis questions, ‘how many people live here?’ ‘how many children go to school?’ ‘what is the source of income?’ ‘do you buy rice by the bag or by the cup?’ ‘how long would a bag of rice last?’ I won’t go into the details, but I will say that it was a rough day. People are hungry and it’s common that they don’t know where their next meal will come from. My village is one of ten in The Gambia to be receiving funds from the U.S. Ambassadors Emergency Relief Fund. The amount of money is something that America doesn’t even blink to spend and is more money than my village has ever seen at one time. The money has been designated to be spent on food security items, among other things. Even with a small village of 33 compounds (200-300 people) the food security is so lacking that at this moment even with 2 bags of rice given to each family, it would only last some families 2.5 weeks.

Hunger is real, it is frightening, and it consumes all thoughts. I have a trunk of food from America (THANK YOU!) and there are times I feel so guilty that I have food that I can’t look at it. It took me about a week before I gave in and had a ‘trunk day’ were I ate until I was so full I just laid on the floor in a combination of being stuffed and being hot! Now I supplement my diet with small things from my trunk. I share small things with my family, I don’t have enough to feed everyone and it wouldn’t be sustainable if I did because then no one would have food. It breaks my heart to hear my younger siblings cry from hunger, to bike to work and have teenage students ask me for food. As a volunteer, it’s my job to be an outlet to exchange knowledge, to present ideas, to identify resources that could be more effectively, and to attempt new things to increase the level of food security and agricultural production. I won’t lie or try to lighten the truth, it’s hard, terrible, depressing, difficult, it physical hurts to be hungry, I think, I cry, I call my family, Evan, I call other volunteers, I cry some more, they support, advise, tell experiences, offer to come visit, we are here for each other at all times.

When I become overwhelmed, I take a moment to center on why I am here, the beauty in the landscape, the beauty in the people. Or I take a moment to attempt to be American, to have a hip-hop dance party with my younger brother who loves Eminem J , to visualize a typical American day, or lay in the heat of the day and read a book. Then comes moments that make me realize that I couldn’t leave now even if I wanted to, I come into the compound and my younger brother, Baba, who is 2, screams with this half-toothed grin, “ISATOO NAATAA” ‘Isatou came.’  Africa is always here.