Only a plate of grain

Africa | In Zambia, women are making a meal a day go all the way | Priya Abraham in Lusitu, Zambia

The women form a quiet arc outside the depot door, babies strapped to their backs, children in tow. Most are barefoot in the chalky Lusitu dust. Janet Seimugade is not on the ration list, but she walks the two miles to the depot anyway.

Inside the pockmarked shed, 66 tons of grain bags from the United States are stacked in the shadows, ready for distribution. One by one those in the crowd collect their blue ration cards, allocating 20 kilograms, or 44 pounds, of corn meal to each household for the next month. While the women wait, they share a bag of masau, a wild fruit the size of an acorn that the villagers eat to survive.

Mrs. Seimugade only wants a plate of grains, just to break the diet of this sweet, astringent fruit. It's been her only food since December. She is the eldest of three wives in an eight-member household. Even her vegetable garden didn't last, devoured by wild animals.