However, during PST, the first few months of training in South Africa, I lived with a family and ate what they ate.  I didn’t truly realize it at the time, but the family I stayed with was food insecure.

Let me be clear, I never went hungry. But I often wasn’t full.  Our meals were limited in choice and greatly emphasized cheap carbs like pap (stiff maize porridge), rice, and bread.  Though we had protein at almost every meal, the servings were quite small.  I didn’t eat many fruits and vegetables, and sometimes would go days without either.

Peace Corps delivered a food parcel every two weeks.  The first few days after it was delivered were great-we had fresh fruit, green vegetables, and our meals were varied.  The rest of the week, the fruit was gone and the vegetables started to peter out.  The second week meant I was often hungry after lunch, and meals were mostly comprised pap and chicken.  My family almost always had chicken at the evening meal, which was great, but the portions would dwindle during the second week.  Some of the meals I had included penne pasta noodles with ketchup and chicken; lettuce and cheese sandwiches for lunch; pap and baked beans; and eggs, bread, and homemade French fries. Not exactly nutritious or delicious.

I remember times when I would open my lunch at 10am and frown because I was already hungry from breakfast and there wasn’t much for lunch.  There were no snacks.  There was no junk food.  During PST, trainees are given a tiny stipend of about $15usd a week, so I was not able to supplement the family’s food often with my budget.  I would occasionally buy some fruit to share or some chips to eat at lunch, but with such a small stipend, and it didn’t go far.

I lived in a food insecure household for 8 weeks, and that experience will never leave me.  I can’t imagine living that way for the rest of my life, but at least 12 million people in South Africa do.  I have no idea what it would have been like if Peace Corps hadn’t provided food parcels to our host families.  Those food bundles ensured our food security while I was living in the household, and it troubles me that this wasn’t necessarily the case prior to my arrival.

Food insecurity has become an important issue for me since I arrived in Africa.  Food security ought to be a basic human right, but at least 12 million people in South Africa are denied it.  Most of the people in my village live in food insecure household.  I’ve spent most of my service trying to ensure that, in some small way, families in my village can learn to be self-sufficient and ensure their own food security.  Yet climate change and its impact on villages like mine concerns me, and threatens to undo all the work I’ve down over the past few years.  Sadly, there’s no easy answer.

I can’t wave a magic wand and fix these problems.  But I can give people the knowledge to improve their own lives and ensure a better future.  And I’m trying to do that on a very small scale.
-Jen

The fact is that I am surrounded by hunger.

No, children aren’t wasting away before my eyes from acute malnutrition. Instead, from birth they are set on a trajectory of chronic malnutrition, evidenced by low weight-for-height (underweight), or low height-for-age (stunting). Their unfocused eyes in the first hours of school, heads dropping towards their desks, and slow, shuffled movements prior to the school serving the lunch at 10am tell me that most do not have breakfast. These kids are hungry.

And some are dying.

In fact, 1 in 15 children die before they reach 5 years of age in South Africa. One third of those children die when they are severely malnourished, and 60% are underweight.

Their death certificates don’t state that they died from malnutrition. No, instead they die from things children should be able to overcome. A 14 year old in a friend’s village died a few weeks ago from a dog bite. Not rabies, just an infection from a dog bite. In a nearby village, a two year old passed away last year from an unspecified illness. A friend of mine told me about a horrible incident at her school, where a first grader accidentally killed a fellow first grader by hitting her in the head with a rock. A last weekend, there was a funeral in my village for a learner from one of my schools. He was “sick for a long time”, which translates into “he had HIV”.

Kids shouldn’t be dying from dog bites, bumps to the head, or preventable and treatable illnesses. This happens when kids are chronically malnourished, suffering from protein-energy deficiency. 2.7 million children in South Africa live in homes where there is child hunger. Overall, 12 million South Africans are considered food insecure, and 4 million of those are on the brink of starvation. These are just a few of the stories….but it’s happening every day.

Earlier this week, I recorded the height and weights of all of our Grade R, or kindergarten, learners. We are in the process of identifying who our Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVCs) are, in order to support them through the school gardens. Finding out the orphans is relatively easy, because the social workers keep track of them and provide a stipend for families who take in an orphan. But the vulnerable children often fall through the cracks. It is up to the school to identify them, and without a standard, it is difficult. I can look at the kids who come to school barefoot, or without coats in the winter, or who wear the same uniform day after day, and I know they are vulnerable. But almost every child in my school is painfully thin-how do I determine who is going hungry? I can’t ask them; they won’t say. So I worked with the principal and decided that we would record their heights and weights and compare them to international standards to determine which children are stunted and which children are underweight.

Out of 39 learners, 18 fall below the 5th percentile in either height or weight. If a learner is at the 5th percentile, it means that 95 percent of children their age in the world are taller or heavier than they are. Nearly half of the class is stunted or underweight. 28 of the learners have a Body Mass Index (BMI) below the 5th percentile. Body Mass Index is a calculation that uses weight and height to determine the amount of fat a person has. Only 1 child has a BMI at the 50th percentile, the rest were below, mostly far below. The 50th BMI percentile mark for a 5 year old girl is 15.1 and for a boy is 15.5.

One of the learners only weighed 11.5kg, or 25.3lb, which is considered underweight for a two year old, and she is 5.

How do we fix this? How do we feed these children? How do we improve this situation?

Stunting has lifelong impacts on a child, even if they receive better nutrition later on in childhood. They rarely catch up with their well-nourished peers. Stunted women often give birth to children with low birth weight, and the cycle begins again. When children have HIV, TB, malaria, or other opportunistic infections, they often do not have the ability to fight the disease, leading to death when it could have been averted. Hidden hunger and parasitic infections exacerbate all of this.

According to the Global Competitiveness Report in 2012, South Africa ranked 107 out of 144 in the world for infant mortality deaths, and 133 out of 144 for life expectancy. In a country that is the economic leader in Africa, a relatively stable economy, and rich in resources, this is a tragedy. In 2011, the GINI coefficient labeled South Africa as the most unequal nation in the world, surpassing Brazil. In a country where wealthy children receive a world class private education and feast on well-rounded, nutrition meals three times a day, rural children are slowly fading away, with empty bellies and immune systems that are unable to cope with the onslaught of physical, psychological, and social maladies. A child raised in poverty in South Africa is four times more likely to die before reaching their fifth birthday than a child raised in a wealthy family.

It is estimated that 30% of children in South Africa are stunted, and 12 million of 52 million people in the country regularly go to bed hungry. In Limpopo, 48% of children were considered stunted in 2005. In 2004, over 800 children died from kwashiorkor, which is an acute form of protein-energy deficiency. Kwashiorkor is commonly seen in places such as war zones, famine relief programmes, and refugee camps. There is no reason it should be seen in a country that has enough food to feed everyone. Kwashiorkor often causes children to have bloated, distended stomachs, and their hair will begin to turn reddish, orange, or gold in severe cases. It is obvious to me that some of the learners I interact with on a daily basis are suffering from kwashiorkor.

What can we do? We can give them seeds and teach them to plant. We can put the power in their hands and help them to ensure their homes are food secure. But I live in the desert. Is it enough?

I’ll write more about ways the government in trying to intervene, and ways in which they should intervene. This country is in a crisis. Food insecurity is a far-reaching problem, which has direct impacts on health and education, and is extremely difficult to overcome. But we must have hope that something can be done.

Otherwise, I’m looking at children who are doomed to be sick and hungry for the rest of their lives, who will raise hungry children, and who will ultimately die prematurely. I am very afraid that this could very well be the reality, unless something changes.
-Jen

http://www.westerncape.gov.za/eng/directories/services/11512/6451
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC201028/

http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/2013/01/30/twelve-million-going-to-bed-hungry-in-sa

1 in 15 children die before their 5th birthday in South Africa, and SA is one of the few countries where this rate has RISEN since 1990.

15% of babies are born with a low birth weight, meaning they have a much greater risk for dying from infection or lack of feeding.

1/3 of childhood deaths are HIV/AIDS related, and another 1/3 are from infections like pneumonia and diarrhea.
Of all children who die, 1/3 are severely malnourished and 60% are underweight.

A child from a poor family is four times more likely to die than a child from a wealthy family.

2.7 million children (15%) live in households where there is child hunger.

1 in 10 children suffer from severe malnutrition.

12 million people suffer from food insecurity, and 4 million of those are on the brink of starvation.

1 in 5 children are stunted due to chronic malnutrition.

Does this scare you? It scares me. There kids aren’t halfway around the world….they are my neighbors. I teach them, play with them, and learn from them. Their smiles make my day, and their exuberant greetings make me laugh. Yet from birth, they fight hunger. They go to bed hungry, wake up hungry, and try to learn while their stomachs rumble painfully.

It breaks my heart.
-Jen

Sources: http://www.feedthebabiesfund.org.za/News/FactsInfo/ChildPovertyandMalnutrition/tabid/108/Default.aspx

http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/2013/01/30/twelve-million-going-to-bed-hungry-in-sa

“Greetings, readers of Jen’s blog!  I have been following it with great interest, too – I am enjoying reading about her experiences and seeing my country through her eyes.  I am an immigrant to South Africa, but have lived here longer than I lived in my motherland.  In some ways I feel I am still learning about this wonderful, rich and diverse country.  Today I share some of my learning with you.

South Africa is a dry country – a rainfall map shows that the coastal areas receive far more rain than the inland areas.  More than half of our population live in built up areas and the rest are at the mercy of poor service delivery (long interruptions in water provision) and an arid landscape.  I recently moved to one of our driest provinces – a huge shock to my system, having lived in the coastal city of Port Elizabeth for twenty years, and a challenge to my permaculture skills.

This province mimics the pattern of South Africa’s rainfall, too!  The parts of the province that border Gauteng and Limpopo are wetter and warmer; so much so that avocados, paw-paws and bananas will grow.  Much of the province, however, is not warmer; it is blisteringly hot in summer and bitterly cold in winter (such as where Jen lives).  Spring and autumn are short and provide little relief from seasonal extremes.

What worries me most is the decrease in rainfall in the areas bordering the Kalahari Desert. Climate change is experienced with devastating force in these areas; where we have some of our projects and schools there hasn’t been a ‘planting rain’ for two years.  Planting rain means 50 mm over two days, so that there is a ‘wet’ depth of up to half a metre – which will enable seeds to germinate.  Planting main crops without this much rainfall is a waste of time and precious seeds. After that there has to be a little more rain to maintain growth, and fruiting and seeding – and this has not happened either. To put it into context, Johannesburg receives up to 700 mm per year on average.  The dry parts of this province can expect up to 500 mm of rain per year.  For the past two seasons the rainfall has been below 200 mm.

I have travelled the length and breadth of the province over the past few weeks – peak harvesting time for main crops – and have seen more fields of crop failure than I ever have seen before. The only really good harvests are those cultivated under irrigation.

I have seen very, very few home food gardens.

Climate change hits the most vulnerable people the hardest.  Living in the rural areas of South Africa is not the idyllic, easy lifestyle one might imagine.  It’s tough. And it’s a constant battle to stretch the few funds that float around; one out of twenty nine adults in our rural areas has a job.  Yes, read that again.  Education is at the foundation of this problem; many children quit school sometime during high school because the high school is too far away from home.  There are a few boarding schools but the conditions are appalling. Many schools are over-crowded and in these conditions it is a miracle that some children do succeed.

Add to this that one in five children is an orphan, and of these young ones, one in five lives in a child-headed home. There are not enough NGOs to go around to provide support. The more fortunate children receive help from the community and sometimes the challenge is just too much.  We had a school at one of our workshops the other day; of the 1800 children in the school 1200 are either orphans and/or vulnerable.  What do we do with this information? What can we do?

Think about it this way, if only one in almost thirty adults has a job, what are people living on? Usually social grants, and these may keep maize porridge on the table, but it doesn’t provide for much more than that.  For the vast majority of our children in this province the food that children receive as part of the National Schools Nutrition Programme (NSNP) is the only thing standing between them and severe malnourishment.  These children are already under-nourished. And there are no food gardens at home (in most cases).

One of the tell-tale signs of under-nourishment is when children’s hair turns a shade of rust to orange.  When we visit schools I am shocked to see just how many of the little ones in front of me are in dire straits.  Another telling factor is stunted growth – almost all the children I see are small for their ages.

When we visited a school in Klerksdorp just after Valentine’s Day I heard how the school had used this event as a fund-raising opportunity – and cancelled the NSNP meal of the day.  Great – it’s forward thinking! The school prepared food to sell, and a great number of children in this area could not afford to buy food.  They went hungry.
Valentine’s Day was on a Friday. Many of the children went home to empty larders for the weekend and returned to school on Monday, weak with hunger.  For some reason, that day the NSNP meal did not materialise.  Some of the children drank water to curb their hunger pangs – so much so that they were vomiting water.

These children are living on a knife-edge.  One small change in the wrong direction can lead to devastating consequences. Living on the edge of the desert is not for sissies; that people are surviving at all is a testament to the endurance of the human spirit. But I know there is only so much that we – people – can take.  There will come a time when the ravages of one too many harsh, dry summers will take their toll.  

So, climate change may be flavour of the month in boardrooms and a hot topic at the dinner tables around the cities, and around the world.  It might be really cool to be green, and to work hard at lowering our carbon footprints.  But, there’s more to it than that.Whilst I support such noble endeavours, I see a sea of faces in our rural areas.  I see homes without food gardens and I see children unable to learn because they are not eating, and if they are eating, it’s not enough of the right food.  And I see less and less rain.

We have to apply ways to maximise home and school food production – put the right food on the table every day.  We have to apply really good, smart ways to harvest the little bit of rainwater that there is. This will bring about the positive change to move people away from the edge.  In order to do that we have to plant trees to create micro-climates that makes it possible to turn desert margins into places of abundance. We need more people (like Jen) teaching people how to grow food in the drylands.

What I can tell you is that my heart is touched by the heart of the people of the North West. In all of these challenges there are good people doing good work, and I have met so many in this province. I see many people working hard to make things better, and to make the most of the few resources that are available.Many of the food gardens I have seen are there because someone took the time to teach others.

I am blessed to be here  -  I live among angels.  And together we will turn our semi-arid desert into an oasis of food!”

The garden in 2011

Those of you who follow my blog regularly, feel free to laugh along with me!

The garden in 2013

As you might know, I am more or less the garden teacher, and have been described as the Garden Guru amongst my fellow PCVs.  It just goes to show that huge problems can be tackled, one tiny step at a time.

I would be doing a disservice if I pretended everything was peachy keen and hunky dory in my little village.  In fact, very little outside the school grounds has changed in the past two years. Sometimes I wonder why in the world I decided starting gardens on the edge of the Kalahari Desert was a good idea.   When I step back and consider the almost indescribable poverty and hardship in my village, I start to lose it. 

Simply put, I cannot adequate describe what life in my South African village is like.  It’s too difficult, for many different reasons.  Partly because I’m an American that was raised like a princess compared to how the children in my village grow up.  I can’t verbalize the storm of emotions that rages within me, nor can I eloquently state the realities of this life.  I live in it; it’s too personal and at the same time too foreign.

And since you can’t all come and see for yourself, I asked a friend to write about her experiences working with rural schools in our province, the North West Province.  Tomorrow I’ll be posting a guest post focusing on the realities of life in villages like mine.  Sue is a dear friend of mine, who I met a little over a year ago at a workshop in a nearby school.  She has travelled throughout the country for the past twenty years, teaching permaculture to rural schools like mine.  I wanted you to understand what this life is like from someone who is a South African at heart, and who so intimately understands the struggles and hopes of the people I live among.

Sue will discuss the dire circumstances that schools like mine, who are trying to produce their own food, face in the wake of a changing climate and rising food prices, amongst all the other challenges they face.  Climate change is real, people, and villages like mine are taking the first and hardest blows. I hope you check in tomorrow to read Sue’s message and begin to understand what the kids and people in villages like mine face each day.
-Jen

The start of a trench bed!

The past few weeks have been pretty crazy in my normally slow-paced African life.  I was out of the village from April 11-28th, travelling here there and everywhere on Peace Corps business.  It’s actually pretty unusual for an education PCV to be out of the village during the school term for so long, but lest anyone think I was slacking-it was all PC approved! 

Planting seedlings.

Back in February, I was invited to help facilitate one of the PC Permagarden trainings with the newest education group, SA26.  The workshop was held in KwaZulu Natal, the home of the Zulu people and 100% different than my Kalahari home.  Mountains, trees, long grass, rain, fog, fertile soil….what a beautiful area!  The workshop was held in the Sisonke district, and about 7 PCVs and their counterparts attended.  I hold this group of PCVs in high regard: almost all of them teach 15-20 hours a week, and some are so rural that they don’t have electricity at home.  Woah.  I had a lot of fun working with this group, and LOVED getting to see real KZN…I had been down to Durban last year, but Durban doesn’t even come close to showing the beauty of KwaZulu Natal.

I've gotten good at carrying things on my head like the locals. I'm on the right.

Fun thing: we stayed in a haunted hotel.  I was on the fourth floor (aka attic), in a room alone, in a creaky, Victorian style house.  It was creepy to say the least.  No, I don’t think they had 8 ghostly visitors, but it was still pretty creepy. 

The two day workshop went remarkably well, and some of the participants have already started their own gardens since then.  They learned some basic permaculture methods, and several have already contacted me for more information.  I’d love to visit some of their gardens sometime, but I have no clue if that is in the cards!  It was definitely fun to interact with some Zulu people, and hear this 100% foreign-to-me language….we didn’t even learn Zulu greetings in PST, so I was at a loss besides “Sanibonani!”

One of the covered seed beds.

After that workshop, I spent a day in Pretoria, then headed back across North West, through half of Northern Cape, to a remote village on the SA-Botswana border.  I had been planning a workshop with 3 (three!) PCVs who live in this village for awhile, and was excited to visit their unique home.  This village is home to a fairly large white and coloured population (not an offensive term here!), along with a large black population (who still live off in the “location” on the dune…relic of Apartheid).  However, no white children attend the school, only coloured and black kids.  This school, due to the “diversity”, is dual-medium, meaning they have an Afrikaans track and an English track. 

Some of the ABET learners with their tire gardens.

Obviously, this was not the normal village experience.  This was easily the nicest rural school I had been in, and honestly could have been mistaken for an American school, albeit low-income and pretty under-resourced.  There were the typical South African education problems, such as overcrowding, corporal punishment, absenteeism, few resources, and the numerous other problems found in village schools.  However, the staff was pretty motivated, and wanted to have a workshop for their ABET ( Adult Based Education and Training) class, comprised of about 25 Grade 7 learners.  Yes, an adult education class for Grade 7 kids….some of whom were almost my age! 

The finished garden!

I was a little leery about working with the most troublesome and struggling learners at this school, but I was pleasantly surprised.  For most of the workshop, they were attentive, involved, and asking/answering questions.  They were clearly excited to be out of the classroom and learning in a different way.  I spoke with one of the volunteers, and he said they might try to have a gardening period every day, since they learners were actually involved in their learning during this workshop.  Just goes to show that sometimes learners need to be out of class to learn!

My next leg of this journey involved another cross-country trip to see my third year site, but that is definitely worthy of its own post.
-Jen

Dad wasn’t happy that I was perched on the edge of this cliff.

So for your enjoyment, here are a few more pics from my Dad’s visit to SA.  And then I swear I’ll update about the last month of my life.

Cool birds at Kruger.

Rhino! They were pretty far away from us, but it was great to see them….they are in grave danger due to poaching here.

Bourke’s Luck Potholes

Dad at the top of the world, AKA God’s Window.

Now, Jessica is a semi-domesticated hippo that was rescued after a flood about 13 years ago.  Her “family” will tell you she’s still completely wild, but wild hippos do not eat bread and sweetened rooibos tea….I had mixed feelings about the visit for several reasons, and was horrified at the “funny” (aka extremely offensive and racist) story the host told us about a local printer.  However, it was really cool to get up close and personal with a hippo, including feeding her, giving her some tea, kissing her, and giving her a back massage.  I’m fairly sure this is a VERY unique experience, and was worth the money.  For kids, it would be an amazing and once in a lifetime experience….heck, it was still that for my Dad and I.

After shrugging off our slight misgivings about Jessica the Hippo, we continued on down the Panoramic Route and stopped off at the Three Rondevals, Bourke’s Luck Potholes, and God’s Window.  The fog because extremely dense at God’s Window, so the employees let us in for free.  Though we didn’t get to see the view, we did get to play around a bit on a slightly flooded and sparsely maintained rainforest trail.

Our last big adventure was ziplining, which we did in Hazy View.  There weren’t a whole lot of ziplines in Limpopo, but this one made up for that.  It was a 3 hour, 9 line, 1.6km long zipline course.  And WOW was it fun!  I had been ziplining before, but this one was longer and a bit more…rugged than the last.  Very African, but in a good way.  The one I did on the Garden Route in 2011 was more strict, straight-laced, and formal feeling than this one….but I still felt 100% safe.  Our guides were great, and our small group of 8 or so people were a fun bunch.  One lady was pretty afraid at first, but seemed to have a blast.   I fully intend to do another zipline in SA, and would HIGHLY recommend it to anyone!  

The day after ziplining, we headed back to Pretoria.  On the way we stopped at the Sudwala Caves.  I was a little let down by this attraction….the tours were tame, with big groups and lost of kids, and the guy talked extremely fast….I had to translate the English for Dad, and I even struggled to catch some things.  It would be fun for kids, but it was underwhelming, though a nice break in the drive back.

Dad left the day before Easter, and I swear the saddest place in the world might be the airport departure gate.  Or else the lonely Gautrain ride back to Pretoria.  :)  He’s already talking about coming back, and my Mom wants to as well.  Guess who is excited for that?!

-Jen

And yes, that is a real hippo, the fiercest of all safari animals.
-Jen

Some monkeys walking down the road in Kruger….African traffic jam. Actually this happened to us outside Kruger too.

Dad perched on the edge of a cliff.

Zebras always make me laugh a bit.

Elephant herd.

Elephant going for a walk.

So many impala!! This was only a small section of the herd.

I might post more pictures later, if my internet cooperates.

-Jen