Nutrition

Nutrition

I have not written a lot about our project here. Since this blog is public, I remain pretty general.

It is true. It is hard for all the kids (and adults) to get good nutrition here in the Sahel. The main staples are millet and sorghum and beans and around 80% of the population lives off the land and animals. It is a lifestyle that waxes and wanes with the provision of the land and weather.

The limited nutrition from eating only starch grains and little else is one issue, since kids need animal fats and proteins to grow properly. But factor in, then, the process of GETTING the food. Crops here are planted, travelled to (easily 2 hours to your field by foot or donkey cart), tended, harvested, and processed all by human power. Once the food portion of the crop is harvested by hand and carted home, stored or sold, then you go back out to harvest the stalks which, laced together in tight formation, construct your home and grain storage for the next year. Oh, let's not forget you still have to pound the grain to get it off the stalk to prepare the meal.If you do the math of energy consumption, this demanding lifestyle often leaves the human wanting for calories.

Why not drink lots of milk and cheese, you might ask? Well, the milk and meat production of the animals is directly linked to the availability of water and nutrition for the herds, which is parallel in its harshness to humans. The Sahel is not exactly a forgiving place to live.

So it ain't easy and handing out sachets of peanut paste is not the one and only answer. Families are large here, averaging about 7 children per woman, and up to 4 wives per man. In this environment, you can start to see the challenges to having enough to eat, let alone educate your children, let along take them for health care.