For many years I am struggling to understand why in Africa people die from starvation. I am not joking. I honestly can’t comprehend how can they die in such a lush climate.
When I was growing up, we used to be taught in schools in history lessons or in movies on TV about how “partisans” used to live and fight during World War 2. When Germans invaded a village, most people ran into the nearest forest burning things behind them and throwing a dead animal into a water supply, so Germans would have nowhere to sleep (houses were made of wood and burned quickly), nothing to eat, and got poisoned with water. For the first night people would bury themselves in the snow. For long term they would dig a pit, cover it with branches and let snow cover it or if in the summer, they would cover branches with dirt. This type of accommodation is called “zemlyanka”, quick to make, and can have hole for smoke from cooking fire, door and optional windows. On a surface “zemlyanka” can be invisible if no smock rises. One can walk over it and not notice. Most hunters usually have their own zemlyankas anyway. Those who couldn’t hunt, eat some kind of bark, pine needles, and the like. A hot drink of boiled pine needles have lots of vitamins in it and can keep one healthy for considerable number of days when no sufficient food was available. For water, tea, or cooking, yes, you guessed right - snow was used. When travelling one slept in a snow. In order not to freeze to death one need to bury her/himself completely. A breath and body heat would create a cavity around the body and eventually a small hole on the top for the air, naturally. This cavity will hold a warmth created by one’s body and the snow would act as insulation. One does not suffocate this way. If other people present, it is best to snuggle together. In the summer things are naturally much easier, as almost everything around is eatable. When I was growing up, most children knew these things despite the fact that we were not likely to ever have to resolve to it.
So, I really can’t understand how in the part of the world with such lush jungles one allegedly cannot survive if needs to, and for sooooooooo maaaaany years. Come on people, beat that monkey of the bush and eat it already. I am not even going to start talking about how easy it is, probably, to grow things in such warm climate and how little clothes one, probably, needs there.
Another thing that always puzzled me in the reports about Africa is lack of water. Why can’t one move closer to water or simply dig a well. In old days wells were everywhere, like at least one per village, right? Why can’t they dig them in Africa? What it is that special condition? They lost knowledge of locating water underground? Is it a special part of the world where there is no water underground? They don’t have shovels to dig? What is the problem?
