Oman Daily Observer

Meals dry up as Zimbabwe’s drought bites

Abed of sand and a patch of mud is all that remains of Kapotesa dam, which once provided the water vital for crops and livestock in this remote part of Zimbabwe. Nearby, farmer Georgina Kwengwere walks among corn stalks desiccated by the drought that is ravaging her country and leaving millions of people in need of food aid.

“I did not harvest anything after all my effort and using all our savings to buy seeds,” the 54-year-old said, shaking her head despondent­ly. “Not even a single cob.” The Kapotesa dam dried up in May, Kwengwere said. “Only God knows how we are going to survive until the next harvest next year,” she said.

When the rains are good, water from the dam in the northeaste­rn Mudzi district allows Kwengwere and her husband to grow vegetables to feed themselves and their six children. There is even a surplus to sell for cash to buy livestock and pay school fees.

Now Kwengwere has to join other villagers on a five-kilometre daily walk to a business centre in the small town of Kotwa to look for odd jobs to be able to buy food.

On a good day she will make about $3; on a bad day, she makes the long-walk back home to her village of Mafuta empty-handed.

Like most villagers in the district of around 164,000 people, her family has cut back meals to just two a day.

“Most of us have no food in our homes,” said Takesure Chimbu, 58, also from Mafuta. “Without water, everything is down,” he said.

Cases of malnutriti­on have jumped by around 20 per cent in Mudzi in the past three months, district medical officer Kudzai Madamombe said.

“Food is quite expensive in the district especially due to the fact that we are droughtpro­ne,” he said, calling for government assistance.

Faced with this spike in malnutriti­on, health experts in Mudzi have come up with a nutritiona­l porridge called maworesa, which means “the very best” in the local Shona language.

It is made from cheap, locally sourced ingredient­s such as eggs, sugar beans and baobab fruit that are contribute­d by the villagers.

The porridge was concocted to cover basic nutritiona­l needs by including carbohydra­tes, protein, and fruits and vegetables, Madamombe said. “This has greatly helped in curbing malnutriti­on using as little money as possible while making sure that every child in every family gets at least four basic food groups at least once a week,” he said.