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In Africa, One Family's Struggle With the Global Food Crisis
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Some outside aid reaches this village: food from the U.N. World Food Program is distributed to children in schools, and Catholic Relief will soon start distribution of fertilizer -- mainly to women farmers -- to help improve their yields.
But still Bamogo struggles. That morning, she treated herself to a cup of weak powdered coffee, which she would not do again for a couple of days. "I don't even think about milk anymore," she said.
For lunch, the family ate a few wild grapes collected in the fields by the older children, who are 8, 11, 14 and 17. The grapes were more like raisins, small and flavorless, just a bit of fruity flesh around a large pit.
"It's not enough, but what can we do?" Bamogo said, pulling herself up with a little groan from her chair in the shade to begin her evening routine.
Bamogo picked up an ax and chopped an old stump into firewood. She gathered straw and carried it to her house to start a fire. She set a blackened pot on the flames and poured in water, which she had fetched from a pump a half-mile away that morning.
Standing in the dirt, she started washing pots and dishes.
Her husband, Pierre Sibra, 50, lay in the shade nearby, watching her work. He was also tired after a long day in the field -- one of the few men working in fields dominated by women.
"I am sad that I am not feeding my family well," Sibra said. "And I am sad to see the way my wife is suffering. When you look at her, you see she is losing strength."
As he spoke, one of his young sons brought him a cup of water.
"It is tougher for the ladies," he said. "We do the same work in the field. But now I am just sitting, and she is still working."
Sibra was asked why he did not help his wife with the chores. He looked shocked. In cultures like this one, roles for men and women are clearly defined. Men do manual labor outside the home, but women are responsible for caring for children and all housework and cooking.
"That's how it works," he said. "Field work we do together. But this is absolutely different. She has to do it. It is her job, and I will not do it."
