Keefele and Ababach Umuro with their six-month-old twins Birut and Abusha. Picture: Eleanor Bentall/Tearfund
Many of us can’t face the day without a cup of coffee and for some only fresh beans will do.
But imagine having a drink based on green coffee leaves with a bit of added ginger and salt, and that’s it.
And that’s it for the rest of the day too. And tomorrow. And the day after that. No food will pass your lips.
All you can have is this bitter drink which is of negligible nutritional value and as far removed from coffee as gravy is to tea.
Welcome to the world of the Umuro family, who live in a village four hours south of the capital Addis Ababa, where a drought has left them exposed to one of Ethiopia’s worst hunger disasters in the last decade, if not since the infamous famine of 1984.
Isolated
The family consists of Keefele Umuro, his wife Ababach and 11 children, the youngest of which are six-month-old twins Birut and Abusha and the oldest a lad of 16.
To get to their isolated community means journeying off the asphalt highway, travelling down a clay-red road and then a mud track until eventually your 4x4 vehicle can go no further.
A 40 minute hike up and down the steeply hilly Ethiopian countryside and you come to the village of Gubana where the Umuros live.
In common with countless others, the drought earlier this year killed off their crops and has left them without any food supplies.
Like about 80 per cent of Ethiopia’s 80 million population, they make their living from the land as subsistence farmers, so when the climate conspires against them the impact is a matter of life and death.
Wasted bodies
The family used to own half a share of a cow but as the crisis became worse they had to sell it to buy food, so they now have no assets.
To make matters harder, dad Keefele has hearing problems which severely affects his ability to find work.
But that hasn’t stopped him preparing the small plot of land surrounding his thatched home for the next harvest, which rains dependent, will be ready towards the end of this year.
Maize is the staple crop but at the moment the family’s coffee trees are the only things growing that they can use for sustenance, and clearly they are very limited value to their wasted bodies.
The baby twins don’t look in good shape. Their hair is wispy, their skin creased and wrinkly, devoid of the elasticity of youth. The thinness of their legs tells you they are severely malnourished.
The signs of malnutrition are clearly evident in six-month-old Birut Umuro. Picture: Eleanor Bentall/Tearfund
Mum Ababach looks comparatively okay but she doesn’t have enough milk to breast feed the children who nevertheless instinctively try and suckle her.
Unlike many families a visiting Tearfund team came across, the Umuros are receiving state help in the form of 40 birr (£2) a month which they spend on purchasing maize from the market.
Trouble is this only buys them enough food to last a week to 10 days, so then it’s back to the coffee leaves and finding food wherever possible.
`Forty birr helps us keep body and soul together for a while,’ said Ababach, who also seeks food from her relatives, while some of her older children go to town to beg whatever they can.
`In good years we get involved in trading butter, coffee and salt to generate income but this time is the worst in living memory.
`Everything is dark'
`Prayer is the only option we have. Everything appears dark at the moment.
`Last night we prayed to God “Look at our plot of land and please remember us”.
`The drought has made life very, very difficult. We are praying to God to intervene. We have nothing to feed ourselves. We are relying on outsiders.’
A short walk down hill and we find the 10-strong Arficho family. Their story is also one of struggle yet resilience in the face of incredibly testing conditions.
They farm an eighth of an acre which is ploughed and prepared for a wheat crop. The trouble is they have no seeds.
Struggle
Dad Ayele told us, `In good years we have potatoes, maize and haricot beans to eat but in the past few months we’ve been relying on enset (a fairly unnutritious plant used to make a type of bread) and coffee leaves. The enset has now run out.
`In normal times we have three meals a day but now getting one is a struggle.’
He’s planted a new maize crop but that won’t be ready for three or four months, so the family faces a lengthy gap without their own produced food.
Ayele used to work at a sugar plant near Addis Ababa but now hunger has left him not physically strong enough to go there.
`You can see our condition and that of our children,’ he said nodding towards his eight youngsters who range in age from 13-months-old to 15-years-old.
`We are praying to God a great deal. I’d like people in the UK to come and see our problems and understand our difficulties. I would ask them to pray for my family and community here.’
Ayele and Ayelech Arficho standing next to enset plants with two of their children, Belete, 5, and 13-month-old Abusch. Picture: Eleanor Bentall/Tearfund