Maria Mabunda prepares tomato paste and local river roots for her 7 children and grandchildren. This is the only food available in Chichongole, a community in Mozambique’s drought-ravaged Guijá district, where according to the village leader, 13 women and children have died this year from malnutrition. Villagers walk far in search of food, but some days they are too weak. Children are dropping out of school, lacking the strength to attend.
“There is nothing else, so we eat rotten tomatoes and black river roots every day. It is not tasty or good for you. When you eat this, you go three days without defecating. You also feel pain in the upper abdomen.
Some days we don’t even leave home, such is the hunger. The children bring the water. But when their legs are hurting, I do it myself. Six of my seven children have left school, only one is still going. They left because they were hungry.
Before the drought, we ate “chima” (corn flour) from corn that we farmed. We ate it with greens, like pumpkin leaf, that we farmed. Now with this drought, we eat this thing you see.
My feeling is to cry to institutions or governments or someone who can help and tell them we are dying of hunger. I am seeing my children dying of hunger. And I am not the only one suffering with this. All these people you see suffer. So my cries are the same as theirs. My sadness is the same as theirs. I cry from this hunger. We are dying of it.
