Malawi's hungry are fighting a twin scourge: drought and HIV/AIDS, as WFP spokeswoman Mia Turner discovered on a recent visit to Thyolo district in the south of the country.

Thyolo district, Sept 26 - Dulani Adwel's weathered face and grey hair tells the story of his not-so-easy life.

As the headman of Mbalanguzi village in the Thyolo district of southern Malawi, Adwel worries about the future of the 3,000 villagers trying to eke out a living in this rugged terrain hit by AIDs and drought.

"We have a huge problem. On the one side we have hunger and on the other side we have AIDS," he laments.

We have a huge problem. On the one side we have hunger and on the other side we have AIDS
Dulani Adwel, headman of Mbalanguzi village

Sitting in his traditional thatched-roof home perched on a hilltop overlooking the impoverished countryside, Adwel points to the wilting banana trees, normally a main source of income. This year they are not producing much fruit. The maize crop has also been burned by the sun.

"It's too dry, much too dry," he says, looking wearily at the barren fields that surround his village.

As the sun bakes the land, the wind sweeps away the precious topsoil. The scene speaks of a disaster in the making -- but it's a one-sided view.

TWIN TRAGEDY

The 66-year-old Headman's own family typifies the other side of the twin tragedy which has struck his, and Malawi's, people. Of his 10 grown children, only one is still alive. Before dying, one son managed to make it to Queen Elizabeth Hospital, 90 km away in Blantyre and was diagnosed with AIDS.

The others simply came home to die of diseases caught in the towns, says Adwel, hinting that the undiagnosed causes may also have been AIDs.

He points to the cemetery down the path from his home where they are buried. Of his 17 grandchildren, 12 are orphans and live with him.

"I have no money to buy them clothing and I can only feed them bananas and cassava," he explains reaching to steady his two-year old grandson, clinging to his leg.

Malawi has one of the highest prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the world. Highly stigmatized, few people admit to having the virus. But many Malawian families have experienced at least one family member dying from AIDS or AIDS-related illnesses.

According to UN estimates, some 30 percent of the urban population and 15 percent of the rural population are HIV positive. "AIDS is killing Africa. Malawians change YOUR behaviour now," plead government billboards throughout the country.

STATE OF EMERGENCY

Faced with this combination of natural and man-made catastrophes, Malawi's government declared a state-of-emergency last February.

Many of the country's 11 million people are facing severe food shortages. Growing hunger is increasingly evident as people resort to eating immature crops, maize husks and wild fruits.

Malawi's timetable of hunger: no. of people requiring food aid 2002-03

Sept-Nov: 2,142,000 Dec-Mar:  3,188,000

According to official statistics, 501 Malawians starved to death between December 2001 and March this year, including 10 people in the village of Undi in Blantyre district.

"I have never seen anything this bad," says Judith Chipman, both farmer and 43 year-old mother of six.

SKYROCKETING PRICES

To make matters worse, the drought has resulted in skyrocketing prices for the country's staple food: maize.

Normally, one kilo of maize sells for 11 kwachas (US$0.15). Today, it sells for 17 kwachas (US$0.23). It's a steep rise in a country where the average monthly salary is 2,400 kwachas (US$31).

The soaring prices mean traditional coping methods, such as selling off assets, have already been exhausted.

Judith Chipman has sold nearly all of the family's goats so that she could buy maize to feed her family.

JUMPSTART

In August, the government announced it would provide seeds for half of the country's six million farmers. It is the government's effort to jumpstart agriculture.

Farmers are already turning over the dry earth of Malawi's parched fields, ready for next month's planting season. But everything depends on the rains. Even if they arrive, the harvest won't arrive until March or April.

"The situation is more difficult as the harvest approaches. Last year people resorted to eating the maize while it was still green. That was disastrous for the overall harvest," explains Gerard van Dijk, country director for WFP's operation in Malawi.

Statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture state that Malawi recorded a maize deficit of 600,000 tons during the last harvest.

WFP is currently feeding 550,000 people. With or without the next harvest, it expects that 3.5 million people will require food aid by March 2003.

BETTER DAYS

Malawi is renowned for its natural beauty & tourism and, before the double scourge of drought and AIDS struck, people knew better days.

Today, only the local school offers hope for a better future

Since March, the school has been providing Adwel and his fellow students with one meal of likuni phala, a porridge made of soya and micro-nutrients.

The meal is part of WFP's school feeding programme. Started in 1999, over 73,000 pupils in five districts in Malawi receive one meal each school day. The agency's current emergency operation has recently targeted a further 100,000 children.

The Chikumba primary school has seen its enrolment soar since a WFP school feeding programme was introduced to nine schools in Thyolo district last March.

In 1998, the school had 350 students. Today it has 1,102 of which 587 are girls.

"We have to turn new students away," says headmaster Robert Limbani. "We are only six teachers. We are already overwhelmed."

MORE GIRLS THAN BOYS

In an effort to ensure that girls also go to school, WFP provides take-home rations of 16.67 kilos of maize and two kilos of beans to each family whose daughter completes at least 18 days of classes a month. Girls who manage to reach the upper grades get eight more kilos of maize.

It's a big incentive in rural Malawi where most girls are prepared for marriage rather than education.

The nine schools in WFP's school feeding programme in impoverished Thyolo district have seen their enrolment of girls increase dramatically. Of the 859 students attending Mbalanguzi primary school, 436 are girls, says headmaster J.A. Khobwe.

"Poverty prevents girls from going to school but we now have more girls than boys in our school," he boasts.

'NSIMA'

It is a measure of the importance of WFP's school feed projects that many students spend their vacations looking for their next meal.

After a month's holiday that ended on August 19, some students returned to school looking malnourished with bloated stomachs and skin ailments.

Frank Malikebu, 13, ate 'nsima' and bananas during his holiday. When he boasted that it included meat, his classmates laughed at him. "Actually, I don't remember when I last ate meat," he admits, sheepishly.