Blog 8: The End

Section One: The Summary
"Hunger and Shame" is organized through many insights of different families in Tanzania who are struggling to keep their children alive from undernourishment and diseases.  The book focuses on the malnutrition among the Chagga who live on the Southern slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro.  Their rate of child malnutrition is among the highest in the country, which is also one of the poorest countries in the world.   The book begins in the mid-1970s, when the famine had just ended but malnourishment had hit many families.  The authors travel from household to household trying to gain a better understanding of the reasoning behind these starving children by meeting the parents and hearing their individual stories.  The book portrays each household very descriptively.  The authors describe one household by writing details about the urine drenched floors and cardboard walls. This book does not only give an introduction to children malnutrition but also goes behind the scenes of the meaning of poverty among the Chagga.  Land shortage and population growth are two main contributors to child malnutrition along with the high amount of droughts that occur.  "Hunger and Shame" also discusses how wage labor is another huge factor in malnutrition because the men are forced to migrate to other countries in order to make more money for their families while the women stay behind and work in the fields and care for their children, which can lead to and overload of work and neglect to their children. In one chapter of the book, the authors talked about the grandmother's role of caring for her grandchildren while their mother went out into the fields. However, the grandmother did not like her grandchildren because they were the children of her dead son's wife and her other son, she refused to give them medicine and they eventually died of sickness.  Later on in the book NURU is introduced, the Nutrition Rehabilitation Unit established in 1972. The author brought this in because it relates to American readers and is very important to the Chagga.  American funds help pay for this unit and many American and European doctors are employed. NURU provides many examples of the cultural complexities that must be solved in order for nutrition rehabilitation to succeed.   The authors main purpose of writing this book is to not only confront the problem in Tanzania but offer solutions that many readers can help out with and it opens the door to better understanding with each individual story leading to more compassion felt by the audience.

Section Two: The Relevance
This book left me with unforgettable information that made an impact on how I view families living in poverty.  For me personally, what really mattered was how parents are dealing with their children's death as if it was expected to happen. It really affected me to read about how common it is to have undernourished children but still the lifestyle remained the same.  I will never forget the interview in the first chapter about a woman pregnant with her thirteenth child. "...while the twelfth was malnourished and still unable to walk at two and a half years of age.  Five of their children had died"(page 7).  I was shocked to learn that a couple who could not afford their last child they had is conceiving another.  Before I thought that child hunger was mainly because of being homeless and having no shelter or support, but after reading this book I now know that these children are born into this lifestyle and suffer from the beginning.  I also learned many of the customs and beliefs of the Chagga that also contribute to child malnutrition. "Serious childhood illness often raise suspicions of supernatural interference" (page 155).  If a child showed signs of weakness or illness the Chagga were too scared to support them and get them the nutrition they needed because it could cause their children to suffer also, so many children died of being neglected. This book also helped me understand more clearly the symptoms of malnutrition "Hamisi had all the symptoms of severe malnutrition, including puffy, flaky, discolored skin and thinning, discolored hair.  His petulance drove the other children away, and he rejected even the touch of his own mother as he teetered on the edge of survival" (page 168).  Overall, I enhanced my knowledge so much by reading this book and I will never forget those stories and the struggles each family faced everyday.

Section Three: The Critique
"Hunger and Shame" is one of the most informative books you will ever read.  I definitely think its worth reading because it gives readers more of an insight to all the problems that lead up to child malnutrition.  I think the authors did a great job making their book personal and relatable. When describing the families and their struggles I think the readers will be more engaged than if reading just a history report.  "...few precautions  had been taken to keep Roberto's bottle from becoming a source of infection.  His death, however, also brought me to confront poverty, social instability, emotional conflict, sorcery, and ideas about the power of a Chagga curse" (page 23). This quote is a great example of how the author showed her compassion through her writing and how it motivated her to make a change.  People who are focused on believing that child malnutrition only occurs in the poorest of countries or in children who are without a home or who would like to learn more about the reasoning behind the high rates of children deaths in Tanzania would most likely benefit the most from "Hunger and Shame". When I started reading this book I had very little knowledge of the causes of child hunger but after reading this book I have a much better understanding and I can now comprehend why so many children are dying rather than making my own hypothesis. Some strengths in the writing was the text used to describe the setting. "The children whimpered for the lack of camouflage in their barren surroundings as they scurried to escape the glare of the strangers who had so rudely entered their home. A stench of urine  coming from the children's bedding began to overwhelm us"(page 5). By using so much description is makes the reader visualize more what these families are going through and it makes the book more interesting.  Some weaknesses in the book were that the authors didn't continue on with the families later on in the book. They introduced them and talked about their situations but never did they return to them later in the book except for one family. I would have liked to see how the families ended up or if they had changed their lifestyle at all.  This would have made the writing more personal and engaging. However, this book had great information and was extremely well written and I would recommend it to anyone. I really enjoyed "Hunger and Shame" and I'm glad I got the opportunity to learn about the people who live on Mt. Kilimanjaro.