Bupe means 'gift' in Kaonde, which is somewhat appropriate as she's now become quite adept at finding little gifts for herself from our soft-hearted staff on peds 2, the malnutrition ward. Bupe and her family have basically moved to Mukinge over the past year as they've spent more time in the hospital than at home; one of the difficulties with treating malnutrition is that the children often require 1-2 months in the hospital to get better, but then the family can't do the farming at home, so they don't plant their crops and the cycle continues.
Families like Bupe's are part of the reason that we're doing our community intervention to reach families at home, teach them about farming for protein-rich foods (beans and peanuts and soy beans) and hopefully break the cycle before they get to the hospital. We're moving forward -- we've got around 230 families so far, and hope to be able to provide seed for all those families in October.
Projects like this make me worried, although they are good, because of the amount of control that you have to turn over to the community and families and overworked hospital staff now and after I go as well. But the opportunity outweighs the risks, and we're hoping for some miraculous changes in the years to come!
