Husna
Head of Household
Camp Oure Cassoni
Sudanese
Husna carries the blue UNHCR card which states how many family members are registered, and therefore, how much food they will recieve this month for 5. Who knows how many unregistered people she has to feed.
Every month she lines up with her empty oil jug, and several reused food distribution bags from the past. She must patiently wait at the start line, until her name is called and she she signs with her finger print. The race for food, and life, begins.
Only one women per family is allowed to go through the line, so she must balance the bags carefully so as not to spill what is supposed to last a month. Salt and sugar first, since they are the smallest. A large wooden box of soy-wheat cereal with a flour-like consistency is next, she holds her bag open while it is scooped inside. Women pass by, knocking her from behind and stepping very close to her bags. She hands her empty oil jug to the women with the cylinder tin USA oil. She screws the lid on tight sealing the 13oz. 5 scoops of yellow lentils into her last bag. UNHCR card punched, one more bag to collect, the heaviest of them all. Once outside the busy, tight line morphs into a larger crowd of women, children, food piles, and donkeys. Names shouted by an aid worker indicate the last pick up of the day, about ! of a bag of sorghum, dragged on the ground by Husna and other women. If they are lucky, the have a donkey to help carry it home.
When Food Runs Out at the end of the month, they drink tea, and neighbors try to share what is left. Many have traded some of their rations, in a saturated marketplace, for a little meat or vegetables. Right now they receive less than 2000 calories a day.
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