Actualidad

©30-year-old Achta Abakar is waiting for a consultation for her 13 months old baby boy, Abdoul-Rahman Mahamat. She has five more children. “My village is 19 km away. By minibus, it costs me 3600 Chadian Francs to come here. It’s too far to walk. There is another health center closer by, but it has no nutrition program. I have come here for several weeks and my baby is getting better. Sometimes he has fever. It’s my husband who brings money, he is working in the south. I am not sure what he does there. Sometimes he comes and visits. I am looking after the fields, but this year I didn’t harvest anything. We only eat boule (a porridge-like dish made of millet that is formed into a ball), twice a day. Sometimes we eat rice. We don’t have any vegetables and eat meat once a week. Often we only eat boule, without anything else. Before, I was also growing beans and sorghum. We have 5 boreholes in the village, two with a pump. Two of them have drinking water but it’s not enough for a big village. When I was younger life was easier. My life is more difficult now because I have children and I worry about them, how to feed them. But I want to have more children because it’s God’s will. I want more aid for our village. We need better agricultural techniques and more food. When someone is sick, it’s difficult to pay. There is no free treatment. I always have to pay for medicine.”