Dark days in Borena

Saturday 24th September

Miyo, Borena

It’s days like today that I feel very sad, I almost despair. It was a red hot morning and another early start to drive two hours south to see a cattle feeding centre and destocking programme. The more we drove the drier the landscape became until eventually it was totally barren, just dust and stones.

As we arrived at our destination on the top of a hill with panoramic views all around us I was told that three years ago this area used to be a vibrant agro-pastorialist area. That is to say, the hills around me used to be home to crops and precious grassland. Now there was nothing.

We met our local guide, a young man from partner GPDI and he started by telling us about the animal feeding centre which SCIAF is supporting. It may seem strange to be feeding animals in a time of drought but it is perfectly logical.

If you don’t keep the animals alive that the people depend upon for their food and income, and they die, the people will become totally dependent on humanitarian aid, even if it does rain. If a family has livestock and the rains do come, then they will be able to recover and will become independent and self-sustaining again.

There were maybe one hundred cattle from cows to calves and goats and sheep. At first it looked quite cute and hopeful as the animals chomped on grass in rickety troughs. Then I started talking to the people.

These were people who had already lost all but one or two cattle and this is the equivalent of intensive care for what they had left. These cows and goats are the last things they’ve got between themselves and basically, oblivion. One woman told me that if her cow had not received this food it would be dead and in fact it hadn’t been able to stand up it had been so week.

The more people I spoke to the more they all echoed the same message.

Then we moved on to look at the ‘destocking’ programme. Destocking is essentially a euphemism for slaughtering cattle. The owner receives a cash payment for his or her animal and the meat, if it is healthy, is given freely to the most vulnerable members of the community.

These cattle are the ones that are too weak to survive and the household they come from, too desperate for food and with no other alternative left to them other than to sacrifice their most prized asset before it collapses and dies by the side of the road for nothing.

Make no mistake, the plight of the people here is desperate. What little cattle they have left will die soon, or they will choose to slaughter them first so they can at least get a little money for a few weeks. Either way, their lives, pastorialist culture and way of life is under imminent threat.

Vital help is being given and several of the people I met would already be dead if SCIAF and others had not intervened with the emergency feeding and destocking. But the problem is enormous and our work is only enabling a small amount of the total affected to gain a temporary respite to their hunger and desperation.

For many of the people I met today I asked them what would happen if the rains now came. Each said that even if the rain came, they have already lost everything, it is too late. There only option now they said would be to dig the earth with their hands and try to plant some basic food. However, it really doesn’t look like the September and October rains are coming.

Looking into the eyes of the people that I met today I really wondered if they would have starved to death if I came back this way again in six or twelve months time.

It’s days like today that I feel very sad, I almost despair.

SCIAF

Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund

Dark days in Borena