When the rains fail everyone suffers. The food supply you saved from last year has run out and the cost of food in the market has risen 400% while you are still trying to feed your family on a dollar a day. Family and friends constantly ask for loans or gifts of food if you are lucky enough to still have maize. Also because of extreme malnutrition and starvation you and your entire family keep falling sick. Thankfully however the local clinic distributes free medicines, when they are in stalk.
But that is still not your biggest problem. Everyone fears for their lives and fields when the elephants are near. Elephants like humans are drawn to maize when times get rough and are drawn out of the park and tempted by maize fields.
A herd of elephants can clear a maize field in less than a night, which is your main food source for the next year.
Recently a friend and college of mine had his parent’s house demolished by elephants and they ate their entire field of maize. Leaving them homeless and at the mercy of friends and family for the next year until they can re-plant. My friend, Stephano, asked for a loan of $12 because that is all he can afford to pay back so he can assist his elderly parents by buying them a goat and a small bag of maize. These two small gifts along with opening his house up to them are all he can do to help his parents to survive for the next year. So now Stephano is supporting his six children, wife, and two parents on a salary of $18.40 a month along with any extra tin (he is a tin smith) he manages to sell.
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