BAHASI has now been officially recognized as a camp

By: Reena Purshotam ~ Board Bahasi

 

BAHASI has now been officially recognized as a camp - we are hosting just over 80 women and children and 16 men. Thanks to your generosity and to donations from various communities and organizations, we were able to reach out to some of the affected villages.

Yesterday, we were in a village near Banana on the outskirts of Blantyre city handing out buckets filled with clothes and blankets as well as plastic sheeting.

Pic 1 - young baby who lived in the grass thatched house in the background. The house collapsed and she and her family had to seek shelter from neighbours. 
Pics 2 and 3 - houses completely destroyed. 
Pic 4 - only one wall left standing. This home housed 7 siblings.

There were no floods or mudslides in this particular village but people still lost all or part of their homes. Some of them are still occupying houses patched up with sacking material and bedsheets. Some of the walls were cracked and leaning and I was afraid that they would fall at any minute.
What struck me most, apart from the damage caused by the cyclone, was the impact of devastating poverty. 
In 2023 - people are still living in houses made of unburnt bricks (zidina) stuck together with mud. The few houses in the village built with burnt bricks and cement were still standing. The zidina houses could not withstand the persistent rain and wind.
In 2023 people are still living in houses with thatched roofs.
In 2023 - a large number of the women we met could not read or write and had to mark our little record book with an X. 
In 2023 there are are still so many teenage pregnancies. Most of the young women we met were or had been teenage mothers. One 23 year old woman was expecting her third child. Her eldest was 8 years old. 
In 2023, some children are still not in school perpetuating the cycle of poverty - and those that are may not be learning anything productive - one child who said that she was in standard 2 could not write her name. 
This was not in a remote and hard to reach area. This was in the outskirts of Blantyre city. The closest town to these people is Limbe. 
How have we failed so badly as a country? Where have we gone wrong? I'm not blaming anyone in particular here but we really need to ask ourselves this question. What can we do? How can you help? How can I help?

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