By Christian Aid | Fri., November 25, 12:28 PM | Comments ( 0 )
Mbeya, Tanzania
Ally fills us in on the 15-hour journey between Dar and Mbeya, driving through a wildlife reserve and an unfortunate, but inevitable, bus break down. Listen to this podcast here.
Photo of the day
Burudians: seven days on the road and still smiling!
I've heard the phrase 'Mother Earth' before of course, but never so often as over the past few days. Then there's 'Mama Africa', another metaphor that portrays the land as a nurturing female force. Women are identified with the land in Africa because they both work it and share its life-giving qualities.
‘All the population must understand that we have to protect the environment to protect human life forever,’ says Nizigama Sylvane - a farmer and mother-of-six - who has been on the Caravan of Home since her home country of Burundi.
But the metaphor also reflects the way in which the fate of the land and the fate of women - particularly in Rwanda and Burundi where more than 90% of the population are farmers - are inseparable.
Nizigama comes from a community in central Burundi, whose maize harvests have recently repeatedly failed due to the variability of rains (not yet conclusively linked to human-induced climate change but certainly consistent with what climate change experts have predicted for the region). And there, as elsewhere, the burden falls heaviest on women.
‘Women are the first victims when there are food shortages,’ she explains. ‘When there is famine in the family the husband can leave - saying he will go to find work - but the woman must stay behind and cope with this misery.’
Rwandan Urayeneza Verene, a maize and haricot bean farmer, agrees.
‘And let's not forget that in Rwanda lots of women became widows in 1994 [during the genocide] and lots of orphans were created,’ she says. ‘And it fell to these women to look after them.’
Urayeneza and Nizigama have become friends during the Caravan, singing from a shared hymn book during long journeys (see video).
Their friendship is an example in miniature of the type of solidarity the Caravan aims to foster. But it is also a friendship based on a shared experience of hardship, an experience that women all over Africa can relate to.
Liongwe, Malawi
Over the past ten days, I’ve had a tough time explaining the British public’s attitude to climate change to the Caravanites.
It’s been ok talking about the two ends of the spectrum. We’ve had a bit of a chuckle at the expense of the crazier fringes of the climate change sceptic movement.
And, I’ve recounted how many Christian Aid supporters are very active on the issue, and described how up to a thousand marched in Manchester in October to demand climate justice of our government.
But it’s the people in the middle - those who don’t doubt that climate change is happening but still view it as a distant and abstract concern – whose position my fellow travellers have difficulty understanding.
‘Well, they have other things on their minds at the moment,’ I say, which seems a little feeble when talking to a Kenyan farmer who has seen her harvests fail year after year.
We do, of course. I don’t want in any way to diminish how severe an effect the economic situation is having on many people’s lives. But reports over the last few days that climate change spending will plummet as austerity cuts take hold, is still a major blow.
Money from industrialised countries to help poor countries adapt to new conditions is a crucial part of climate justice. African countries, amongst others, need to adapt to weather conditions that have rendered traditional ways of farming close to useless. But more than this, if African countries are to pull themselves out of poverty and flourish, they need to find ways of developing without further polluting the atmosphere - read Christian Aid’s Low-carbon Africa report.
It's up to us to ensure that our politicians don’t view climate finance as an easy thing to dispense with as the cuts start to bite.
Photo of the day
A Caravanite keeps us entertained during our long wait at the Malawi-Tanzania border.
Leave a comment:
IMPORTANT: Your comment will not appear immediately as we vet all messages before publication. We don't publish comments that are racist or otherwise offensive. Nor do we publish comments that advertise products or services. Please keep your comment concise and do not write in capitals.
Post a Comment
Post a Comment