In search of semolina...

As well as preparing the house the night before, Jinny and I had taken Poni's list of ingredients to the local supermarket and purchased the KILOs of onions and red kidney beans. The semolina was not looking so promising!

After tracking down a young lady working at the store and expecting to have to describe and explain exactly what semolina was, we were taken back to hear her laugh - having never been asked for it in her life, in the last 10 minutes 4 customers had asked her the same question! A cloud of concern crossed my mind - did this mean that the whole of Adelaide was holding some grand 'ugali' event and that ours was going to be rendered mission unsuccessful? As the shop assistant took us to exactly the right place in the correct aisle, there stood a couple of Indian guys with the last 2 packets in their hand!!! Also intrigued about the 'run' on the semolina we exchanged stories about our plans with the outcome being that they most certainly were prepared to go halves in the remaing supplies and cheerfully handed over our portion! An excellent start but i wasn't too sure how far 250g of semolina was going to go to feed 35 hungry Aussies!

It reminded me of the program that has been put in place in Makuluni village so that some of the children have at least got a tummy that is not rumbling during school. Mothers take it in turns to go to the school and prepare over fire the maize that has been donated for the children who attend the school so that they have food in their belly to concentrate. For some it is their only meal.

Another government initiative has been to reward the families who send their daughters to school with a portion of maize at the end of the week to supplement the family's food supply. this generates a sense of 'value' in sending the girls to school rather than sending them out to work in the fields or mountains. It is a strategy that feeds straight into a key public health principle that shows that if women can be retrieved from illiteracy, efforts to improve the overall health of the population become immediately more viable and likely to result in positive health outcomes for the whole community.