I’ve just met a Nigerien woman in the capital, Niamey, who is determined to challenge the unscrupulous traders who are partially behind the high prices of millet – the staple here – and other grain which is playing an important part in the severe food crisis which is devastating this country.
Too much water can be as destructive as not enough. Hardened earth cannot easily absorb large amounts of rain, quickly creating a flash flood. Then, after a rain, standing water can soon become breeding ground for malaria-carrying mosquitoes and disease-ridden bacteria. The return of the rain is no simple event.
We need community workers, cars and fuel to physically go out, find these children, bring them back and save their lives.
And we need to help families in the longer term. They need food now, but they also needs to be protected from having to sell seeds and tools for just a few days of food.
My country is a really wonderful country. With a good rainy season you will discover it on every person’s face. If the harvest is good, villagers show their happiness through different sports.
7.7 million people are going hungry. 127,000 children under five years old have been admitted to hospital for malnutrition-related problems since the start of the year. That’s like having a city the size of Oxford full of no one but starving babies and toddlers. It’s terrifying.
During the last eight weeks, while I’ve been in Niger, I’ve often been overwhelmed by the scale of the problems people face here. It’s not just the current food crisis and the number of people who are going hungry now but also the future and what this has in store.
It’s always a bit strange meeting someone whose voice you’ve heard so often on the radio but never seen what they look like in the flesh. Before meeting Mike Thomson – reporter for BBC Radio 4 Today Programme – I did a quick google on him to find a picture. In reality the picture didn’t look like him at all so it wasn’t much help!
Suddenly the room I was working in went orange. It was as if someone had put an orange filter over the window glass. Then it went very dark but it was the middle of the afternoon. All three of us in the room looked at each other in bewilderment and immediately rushed outside to see what on earth was going on.
I’ve lived in Niamey for almost a year now, and I’m never sure what to do when someone asks me for money. It’s the worst feeling to hear a kid ask you for some money because they are hungry, but it’s even worse to think about the possibility of whatever you give them benefiting someone else.
Today, I’ve got it in for Nigerien men. Women’s rights definitely haven’t made their way to Niger. Driving through the arid country all I can see is men sitting around in the shade while the women are in the hot (and I mean 45 degree hot) sun pounding millet, washing clothes, looking for food, fetching water and looking after their children.
