As hunger bites, people survive on kwete,malwa dregs in Karamoja

It is early morning – a few minutes to 9am – on this dusty road bullishly winding its way through the mostly wild interior of rural Karamoja, about 20 kilometres from Moroto Town.
As our car shoots down the road (four journalists, plus the driver and a translator, headed to a demonstration ranch), our eyes suddenly fall on this long queue of women gracefully trudging their way in front of us on the road, each carrying a large jerrycan on her head.
The queue of women makes way for our car to pass, and as we whizz past we (the journalists) begin to discuss how these women must have fetched the water on their heads from a very far-off village, and what an arduous task it should be for them every single day.

But our translator, Okwi cuts us short with a passionate “No, no, you are getting it all wrong!” He goes ahead to tell us that the local women with jerrycans on their heads are returning, not from fetching water, but from fetching a local brew called kwete and the residue of another local brew malwa.
We ask Okwi what’s the story behind women ferrying kwete and Malwa residue, and he tells us that is the only form of food they can access.

Effect of persistent drought over the past three years
Mark Awori Musoka, the LC5 chairman of Moroto District, says although the residents of Karamoja have always had a penchant for regular alcohol consumption, often failing to eat food, presently, it is about the need to survive.
“Over the last three years, most parts of Karamoja have experienced little rains, hence people have no food to eat.”
“The droughts have hit the region for three years now, since 2013, and the worst so far is this year,” Awori adds. “This year most parts of the districts of Moroto, Kabong, Napak, Amudat and Kotido all don’t have food; because of drought the crops either didn’t germinate or they didn’t flower.”

“We have had scanty rains in Moroto this year,” says Napak-based journalist Isaac Koire, “so naturally there are no crops.”
The only people who realised some scant yield are in pockets of Nadunget and Tapac sub-counties in Moroto District, and some parts Napak and Abim districts. ”
In Nabokot trading centre (about 10 kilometres from Moroto town), 62-year-old Nachuge Namere is at a stall of Kwete haggling for a good quantity of Kwete at Sh2,000.

She says she has come to buy something that can keep her family of five alive for the next two days, lest they die like the five people who have so far died from hunger in her sub-county.
“Since I took up farming about 10 years ago, I have been harvesting some sorghum, maize and beans, but last year I harvested less because of drought, and this year all my crops failed, now we have to survive on Kwete and Adakai.”

The local brew puzzle
“In Karamoja it is the role of the woman to forage for food to feed the family,” Namere says, before adding, “So in the afternoon of a given day the women go about work to earn some money that will buy the brew and residue, and the next morning they will go to the trading centre to purchase. The work the women do to get money includes collecting firewood, burning charcoal, hitting stones, or working in the mines. From the work most earn an average of about Shs1,000 a day and that’s what they take to buy the brew and residue to feed their families. ”

Namere explains how she goes about it: “I gather firewood around the village in the afternnons, then in the morning (at about 4am) I trek five kilometres to sell the firewood to afford the dregs. It is the same for most women here.”
In Kwairo village, a 48-year old Lora Akimu hits stones at a quarry. On average she earns only about Shs 1,500 a day, because she can only gather three buckets of stones. Each bucket is valued Shs500.
Namere tells the plight that the women in Karamoja face. “First of all it is very difficult to get money to buy the brew and residue. Trees have been depleted while those who hit stones in the quarries earn little.”

Children below the age of 12, survive on half a mug of the dregs per day while the adults consume one mugful. “Normally, you serve this meal late in the afternoon after you have finished gathering firewood or hitting stones, so you kill the hunger pangs and go to rest –otherwise if you take the meal and you have to do some more work, the body will demand for food yet you are to have your next meal the following afternoon. In the cases where there isn’t enough to feed everyone in the family, you serve the little that’s available to the children and you adults keep pushing on as you fight to obtain some more,” Nameere explains.
In spite of all these innovations, some people are starving to death and there is little that can be done to rectify the situation.

The bigger picture
Regarding the three-year-long crop failure that has hit Karamoja, Koire says beyond addressing the current crisis, there is need for government to put in place long-term measures that can safeguard Karamoja from suffering drought-caused famine again.
“We are all talking about crop failure caused by the increasing drought, but why aren’t the people being helped with interventions that can ensure that droughts don’t hit the region again in the future?” Koire asks. “Where is the effort to help the people adopt irrigation, where is the introduction of crop varieties that are more drought-resistant than the current ones? Where is the effort to empower the people economically so that if they can’t grow food, at least they can afford to import it to Karamoja from areas that realise big harvests, such as Teso, Busoga, Buganda and even Western Uganda?”, Koire asks but sadly I have no answers for him.

Both Awori and Looki express the same view reckoning it’s high time government and other agencies working for development in Karamoja came up with long-term solutions to the drought and famine that have began hitting Karamoja every year.
They reckon government should quickly design and implement irrigation schemes or else the problem is bound to recur.
As I travel back to my home, I am exhausted but I know I can easily access a nice meal. I cannot say the same for my brothers and sisters who are fast adjusting to having a daily meal of dregs from local brew.

The appeal
Perhaps the much-publicised Karamoja food donations will make a difference. However, Koire reckons that the story of food aid in Karamoja today is largely misrepresented.
“Most people outside Karamoja think that the Karamojong live on food donations all-year round, yet people have been growing crops and living off them, as well as off animals for those who still have the animals” Isaac Koire, a journalist based in the area says.
“Now drought and famine are here and people are dying without much food aid coming through. World Food Programme is the only organisation trying to help out, but it can only do so much on its own, for the food it gives out so far can only cater for a small chunk of the staving population here. Maybe about 20 per cent of them.”

Nachuge Namere, 62-year-old resident reiterates Koire’s words saying that although World Food Programme has commendably tried to single-handedly help out, there is need for more aid relief agencies to come on board and give the scores of people starving some help.
“The government should also come out and help us,” says the Moroto LC5 Chairman Awori. “The people are poor, their crops failed, and if we don’t get urgent help scores and scores more are going to die. This same situation is facing the people of Turkana in Kenya, but their government has come to their rescue commendably.”

“I mentioned this need for relief the other day when the president was here when the situation had not become so terrible, but I hear there’s a problem with the processing of the money to help purchase the food relief,” Awori adds.
However, last week the Country Director of the World Food Programme, Michale Dunford, contested all talk that WFP food donations can’t solve the present food crisis in Karamoja. He said WFP is going to donate 7,500 metric tonnes of food between now and the end of the year, when the harvest season will arrive.
Karamoja leaders on the other side say there is no harvest to be looked forward to because most of the crops died either at plating or shortly after germination.

[email protected]