Insight from the second CSS village: Chinoje Chinoje village is located 60 kilometers from Dodoma town and 20 kilometers from Mvumi town, with a population of 2,871 people representing 629 households – an average of 4.7 people per household. The village is relatively remote but still accessible. Chinoje village grows pearl millet, sorghum and maize as the staple food; pearl millet being cultivated by 70%, Sorghum by 20-30% and maize by only 5% of the households. Moreover, the villagers grow grain legumes which are nutrient-dense, including cowpea, green gram and bambara nut. Additional oil seeds crops are produced as cash crops including groundnut by 70%, sunflower by 70% and sesame by 50% of the population. Production of vegetables is highly limited. Some vegetables are produced in the ephemeral sand riverbeds during the dry season for only 4 months from June to September. Vegetables grown in these rivers include cowpeas, okra, pumpkin leaves and sweet potato leaves. This is a traditional practice of exploiting the moisture that remains after the ephemeral rivers stop flowing. These practices are regarded unhealthy to the environment by disturbing the river courses and increasing the silt load in the water flowing downstream to Mtera hydropower dam. Fruits seem to be very scarce in the area. The key informants reported that there is only one mango tree and two pawpaw trees in the village. This could mean that intake of fruits is very low. By having two types of tropical fruits surviving in the village (pawpaw and mango), it means these particular species can be promoted and even other more tropical fruits altogether. Farmers in the village keep livestock including chickens, goats, sheep, pigs, donkeys and cattle. It was estimated that out of every 10 households 7 keep have chickens (70%). Cattles are kept by around 2-3 out of every 10 households. Chickens are mainly sold to smooth consumption expenditure. Only 30-40% eats the eggs they produce from reared chickens. Sheep, goats, pigs and donkeys are very rarely reared. Consumption of milk is possible in months from February to July. 5-6 out of 10 households take milk during this period. During a grace period in terms of food availability (February-May) the entire household has two meals a day unlike the lean period (June-February) where adult members in the household eat only once and children can have 1-2 meals. A typical meal in this village comprises a bigger starchy part which is normally ugali and any type of vegetable as relish. In the relish part they normally add local salt (not iodized) and either oil or groundnuts. Only 30% of the households consume iodized salt. Water appears to be a big challenge that limits the pocket gardening. There is one deep well supplying water for the community with safe water that is not free. Only 30% of the households in the village can afford deep well water and the remaining 70% rely of extracting domestic water from sand rivers. The diseases ravaging the village community include dysentery, scabies (upere), malaria, worms, and eye and chest problems. The eye and chest problems were attributed to blowing dust and flu.
22.06.2016 07:59
