Last time I mentioned explaining the red chilies. Well the story starts with money.
The average, family income per year is about $30. Not much, even for a rual area like this. Things like soap, clothes, medicine, school, these all take money. Each item has an impact much deeper than one might think. Take the medicine for instance.
Child mortality in Midigo was at about 40% when I first visited the area. That means that 40% of the children born in Midigo, died before they were 5 years old. Take a moment to think about that... Think about the number of children you know. Now imagine 4 out of 10 not being there.
Now lets take it back to the red chilies...
Nearly all of those children died from malaria. Well not entirely from malaria. Each child was probably also malnourished, suffering from internal parasites and any number of other ailments. However, it was usually the malaria that would push them over the edge.
Malaria medicine, for a child, would cost between 10 and 30 cents. Nothing to us, but to them it is a sizable amount. Now, the family has to decide if they should spend this money on medicine and maybe have the child get malaria again in a month or two. Or, see if the child can pull through on their own.
Well that $30/year doesn't go far with those kind of decisions. So we looked into a way to help them make some extra money. Red chilies are one of the best cash crops in the world. Nearly everyone uses them in cooking. They are light weight and store easily. There is a ready market for them in Uganda and for export. So, with some help from some friends working with USAID we started an agriculture program in Midigo.
Last I heard about 20 families were doing quite well with them. That along with several other programs we worked on made a huge difference in Midigo. During my last trip to Midigo, an elder told me that their "children were not dying anymore."
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