It is still midmorning in Malawi when we arrive at a small village, Nthandire, about an hour outside of Lilongwe, the capital. We have come over dirt roads, passing women and children walking barefoot with water jugs, fuel wood, and other bundles. The midmorning temperature is sweltering. In this subsistance maize-growing region of an impovershed landlocked country in southern Africa, households eke out survival from an unforgiving terrain. This year has been a lot more difficult than usual because the rains have failed, probably the result of an El Niño cycle. Whatever the cause, the crops are withering in the fields that we pass.
If the village were filled with able-bodied me who could have built small-scale water harvesting units on rooftops and in the fields to collect what little rain had fallen in the preceding months, the situation would not be as dire as it is this morning. But as we arrive in the village, we see no able-bodied young men at all. In fact, older women and dozens of children greet us but there is not a young man or woman of working age in sight. Where, we ask, are the workers? Out in the fields? The aid worker who had led us to the village shakes his head sadly and says no. They are nearly all dead. The village has been devastated by AIDS, which has ravaged this part of Malawi for several years now. There are just five men between twenty and forty years of age left in the village. They are not there this morning because the are all attending the funeral of a fellow villager who died of AIDS the day before.
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario