As she was on her way to visit Mrs. Msumba a few months ago Mrs. Namaleu noticed a large group of women gathered around a neighbor’s home. Gradually she made her way to the center of their circle and there she found a toddler with severe Kwashiorkor (a disease of malnutrition, manifested by - generalized swelling, peeling skin, loss of pigment of hair, and areas of the skin which are either hyper or hypo pigmented).
After inquiring, Mrs. Namaleu learned that the child’s guardian was his grandmother. The grandmother had had 15 children but 12 of them had died in adulthood leaving their children in her care. She was married to a man who was not the father of any of her children but was trying to support them all on his salary as a night watchman. Often they did not have food in the house for days at a time so the grandmother decided to get work at a nearby rose farm.
Unfortunately while she was working, spending long hours away from home and from her youngest grandson his condition deteriorated. After a month of working six days a week and still not having received the measly salary of 1,500MK (about US$10), she returned home. The day Mrs. Namaleu came to their home, hope had disappeared and the women were literally waiting for the child to die.
Without hesitating, Mrs. Namaleu took the grandmother and the child to the malnutrition ward, admitted them, visited them regularly, oversaw his care, and in time the child made a full recovery. However once he was discharged home and stopped receiving the energy rich “Plumpy Nut” from the hospital he immediately began deteriorating. Again the grandmother took him to the hospital and there he was restarted on the food supplement.
At the time of our visit the baby looked very healthy but he was still receiving the supplement and the family worried what they would do once he was again discharged from the program. The grandmother, her husband, and their nine dependents live in a small mud brick home on the outskirts of Lilongwe.
Since our visit, Chimwemwe mu'bereki obtained financial support through MUMs (Malawi Underprivileged Mothers), a Scottish nonprofit, to begin a feeding program near this family. These children now receive enriched porridge several times a week.
