The East Africa food crisis is affecting thousands of people in Uganda. Tearfund's TIM RABY has just returned from the country and reports on the situation.
The food crisis often comes up among members of this Ugandan literacy class. Picture: Tim Raby/Tearfund
Under a tree in the north east Ugandan village of Nasinyon, a group of men and women are saying the letters of the alphabet.
They're taking part in literacy classes run by the Church of Uganda for adults who never went to school.
The subjects covered in the literacy classes are ones chosen by the students or the teachers as relevant for the community.
They often cover subjects such as HIV (prevalence rates are rising in this part of the country) or peace-building, but now the only thing people are talking about is food.
We met Anna Nacur who is now surviving on wild fruits and seeds because this year's harvest has completely failed.
Anna Nacur and her family are surviving on wild fruits after harvest failures. Picture: Tim Raby/Tearfund
She has to look after many of her grandchildren because their parents have travelled to neighbouring areas, where they hope they will be able to find more food.
The fruits and the seeds are bitter and not very nutritious, which lead to her children getting diarrhoea and falling ill.
Later we passed near a deserted village where the entire population of 500 people had moved further north, because they had heard that those areas had produced some food this year.
We also see women sitting on exposed rocks, pounding seeds that they will use to make a form of porridge.
In this society, women and children live in homesteads (known as manyattas) while the young men herd cattle - travelling round the region looking for the best pasture.
There is a tradition of cattle raiding - because cattle are a symbol of wealth and prestige - which has turned deadly in recent years as guns left over from the conflicts in Sudan and Ethiopia find their way into the region.
A couple of nights earlier, 3,000 cattle had been raided from a nearby settlement and two people were killed.
The rains that were expected to fall in May and June did not arrive and the shorter rains of August seem to have passed already.
Driving out to Naminyon, we splashed through some small puddles and the UN are encouraging people to take advantage of this by planting quick-growing crops, but very few people have access to such seeds and the Church of Uganda saw this as a last, desperate throw of the dice for the people of Karamoja.
Uganda hasn't escaped from the effects of the food crisis evidenced here by the lack of seeds being available for threashing. Picture: Tim Raby/Tearfund
In some areas, malnutrition rates are already at emergency levels, but driving back to the town, the Church of Uganda staff could only speculate on what the situation would be in a few months time, as the next harvest is not expected until May next year.
Knowing that worse is to come for the people of Karamoja leads me to fear what the situation will be like should I go back to Naminyon later this year, but also provides an opportunity to intervene now to try to stop the situation deteriorating any further.
Tearfund hopes to support the Church of Uganda to distribute food to the most vulnerable people and to provide agricultural training to help them prepare for next year, to avoid a repeat of this situation.