Coping with Drought in Sumba

“This is the last of our corn. When our family has eaten this, we have no more food left.” This is the sad story of an old lady in Kalamba, one of the villages included in our food assistance project. “The next harvest is in April but, because of the late rain and drought, I am very worried about this year’s crop. Also, the strong winds we are having can easily destroy the few weak corn plants that have survived.”

This is a photo of a family living in Bidihunga, another village covered by our project. There are two families living in this house. The young couple has three children and has “adopted” another child from a woman who could not care for her little boy. The couple’s grandparents and a single brother also live with them. Two weeks ago, when we went to assess the condition of this village, we spoke with this family and found out they were eating only two small meals per day. They have no more food in the house and only have one chicken left to sell for food. Fortunately, their parents have two more goats that will be sold to purchase food for the family.

They have no money to buy rice from the government sponsored “rice for the poor” program which is offered at a significant discount. Neither do they have money to purchase water from the water truck which comes occasionally. Instead, the young woman must go down into the valley to a spring where she can obtain water. It is a very steep climb and she can only carry one 15-litre container on each trip.  Baths and laundry have not been a priority.

This family planted a half hectare (about 1.25 acres) of corn in late December but if they don’t get rain in the next few days, the crop will not survive. They shared with us that, unfortunately the rain which fell in the general area a week ago did not fall on their field.

It is people like these that World Renew along with our partner, the Gereja Kristen Sumba (GKS), are planning to help with this project. The proposal is to feed 3,500 people in five villages once a month, for six months starting at the end of February. Every individual will receive ten kg of rice. The members of each beneficiary group will share eight kg of mung beans and two litres of oil. All of the beneficiaries are subsistence farmers. This means that they grow enough food for their family to survive, but they don’t have any surplus to sell.  All of these farming families  are experiencing the same food insecurity due to the drought. Only those living in the villages who have full-time salaried jobs will be excluded from receiving the monthly food ration.

Since Sumba is a small island with very limited resources there are numerous logistical challenges in implementing the project. We are currently in the midst of the food tendering process – 210 metric tons of rice, 2 metric tons of beans and over 6,000 litres of cooking oil is a large shopping list!

Meanwhile, our community organizers are busy arranging village committees to help with the distributions and conducting a detailed baseline survey to gather data.

Meanwhile, a little side note. We are renting a lovely, furnished house on the outskirts of the town of Waingapu. We have lots of animals all around us, which we hear and meet as we go for our early morning walks – pigs, cows, goats, chickens and many noisy roosters. Who ever said roosters only crow when it is time to rise and shine?

Inside the house we have the company of ants, mosquitos, flies, geckos, cockroaches and mice – all part of everyday rural living. We have been heard to say we like to experience the lifestyle of the culture of the people we serve and it seems we are getting our wish!

However, in contrast to the hungry villagers, we have more than enough food and are enjoying a variety of Indonesian fare.

Please pray for us and our team that all the planning will go smoothly so that the hungry people in our villages will soon receive relief.