Dr. Tim Kubacki writes about the drought he sees in SE Angola while working in the province of Cuando Cubango. He’s a medical mission doctor who has been serving rural Angola since 2012, we wrote about him here.

Patients in line waiting to see Dr. Tim.

“We were dropped off by MAF [Mission Aviation Fellowship] pilot Marijn, who has been making food flights for the past months to this region to try to make a dent in the famine. He was accompanied by a man from National Geographic who had just driven up to this part of Angola through Botswana, from South Africa. He’s been traveling this region of Africa since he was a kid, some 40 years ago, and he said he has never seen a drought this bad in Botswana, Namibia and Angola. He passed carcasses of elephants, Oryx, Kudu, Hippos and much more. He said every time he stopped and stepped outside of his car, he smelled death on the wind. He said the Oryx are so hardy and he has never seen one starve to death and on this trip he saw many Oryx carcasses.”

Sacks of corn and medical boxes off-loaded in Jamba, Cuando Cubango.

“I’ve seen many patients (perhaps the majority) with heart rates over 100 with complaints of generalized weakness and pain. I’ve smelled ketosis on the breath of so many. Virtually everyone is markedly dehydrated. I gave a talk on nutrition during famine one morning before clinic and one woman spoke up while virtually everyone nodded in agreement when she said, “We just don’t have food.” Almost everyone I saw this week in Rivungo [a town in Cuando Cubango] is in a state of mild to severe starvation.”

After the sacks of corn are loaded from plane to car, every kernel is picked up.

See Dr. Tim’s blog with photos at: kubackisinangola.com