The mother, Miero Finiba, told us that she was eight months pregnant (confirmed by a health card) and had nothing at all to eat in the house (confirmed by her husband). She and her children had last eaten a day earlier, when neighbors — themselves impossibly poor — shared some of their food.
Ms. Finiba was also afflicted with a leg infection that looked gangrenous. That meant that if she didn’t starve, she might soon lose her leg — or, more realistically in a village with no medical clinic, simply die of the infection.
Her two small children, ages 5 and 2, would then be at great risk of dying without their mother to look after them. The father is blind, from a disease called river blindness, which is transmitted by black flies, and cannot cultivate the fields.
It was at that point in the conversation that Ms. Dave choked and teared up. “Is there anything we can do?” she asked.
Click here to read the entire story as it appears in the New York Times (June 25,2011)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/opinion/sunday/26kristof.html?_r=1
O.O.delivers food to 1,600 Omaha area families each December, and works to create awareness for the 1 in 8 Americans who sometimes do not have enough food to eat.
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