A bowl of ground peanuts. This oily paste is used to flavor bland food. Women prepare this, grinding the peanuts and mixing the paste with their bare hands. The paste is left to dry in the midday sun, with enough to last them a whole year. [Photo: Chris de Bode]
A small bag of peanuts costs 25 CFA (4¢) from Mémé market, extreme-north Cameroon. [Photo: Chris de Bode]
In the extreme-north of Cameroon tomatoes are a luxury food. There is only one stall in Mémé market that sells tomatoes. This stall is divided into three sections based on quality: 1) larger, knobbly, greenish red, 2) bruised and split, or 3) the last resort. This tomato is from section 2 and cost 50 CFA (9¢). [Photo: Chris de Bode]
While this plate of food may look like a mound of raw mince beef and mushy peas, it is actually ground red maize, surrounded by a green sauce made from mango leaves. This meal has been prepared by Palta Ali, a 30 year-old mother of four living in an unnamed IDP camp in Mémé. [Photo: Chris de Bode]
Shimmering with silver scales, these very small, brittle, dried fish have almost no meat on their bones. Bought in a black plastic bag of about seven, they are used to season bland staple food, such as maize. [Photo: Chris de Bode]
A bowl of fish bones is all that remains of this meal. One small black plastic bag of seven fish costs 200 CFA (37¢) from Mémé market. [Photo: Chris de Bode]
A small bag of Niebe (black-eyed) beans. Food is so precious in this area that this black plastic bag was found meticulously tucked between a crack in the wall at the home of Ache, an 80-year-old grandmother living with her four daughters and their children in a small rented home in Maroua, extreme-north Cameroon. Her village was attacked in the night and all the men in their family were taken or killed. They beg to try and gather one meal a day, but sometimes even that is not possible. [Photo: Chris de Bode]
Saving food on a small plate for a day when there is nothing to eat. Begging is for many people the only way to get one a meal a day. [Photo: Chris de Bode]
Firewood is an important commodity. Not only is it used to cook, people forage for firewood in the bush to sell in the village to earn money to buy food. Without the hope of firewood, there would be nothing to sell to purchase the food for one meager daily meal. [Photo: Chris de Bode]
This is a stick of red maize. Conflict in this area is having a direct impact on food. For the last four months roadside crop growth has been restricted to one meter in height, to protect towns from armed men, limiting the production of the most staple food products in this area; millets, sorghum, and maize. Distribution of fertilizer, sometimes used as an ingredient for explosives, is also banned in this region. This, combined with a rainy season that now arrives two months later, sees agricultural livelihoods on hold, as land lies desolate next to the roadside. [Photo: Chris de Bode]
This battered spoon belongs to 20-year-old Amina, a young pregnant mother of two. People have fled violence in their village, often in the middle of night, leaving with nothing, sometimes not even their shoes. People arrive in Mémé and are forced to rely on the kindness of new neighbors to provide clothes and food. This battered spoon is a gift to be treasured. [Photo: Chris de Bode]
A plate of okra, or ladies’ fingers. [Photo: Chris de Bode]
This plate contains maize husks. Food is so scarce here that even the chaff of maize is saved and eaten. [Photo: Chris de Bode]
This plate is the half-eaten lunch of Ramata Modou, 58, and her family. She is the appointed leader of an unnamed IDP camp for women and children in Mémé village. In an attack on her village on the border with Nigeria, her husband suffered a heart attack and her 17-year-old daughter and grandchild were taken. When she fled her village and first arrived in Mémé, she slept under trees for two months with her six children aged 5 to 16 years old. A meal of ground red maize, white rice, and crushed mango leaves, this will be the only meal her and her six children will eat today. This food was gathered from going house to house in the village to beg. [Photo: Chris de Bode]
A yellow pepper. Vegetables are a rare luxury in the extreme-north of Cameroon with most people surviving on one bland meal of maize each day. The long-term effects of this diet sees chronic malnutrition in children and subsequent stunting, both physically and mentally. [Photo: Chris de Bode]
This old sardine tin forms the central part of a homemade children’s “play kitchen,” as the children pretend to make dinner. Sadly, the reality of eating sardines is a distant memory from before they arrived in this IDP camp. Surviving on just one meal a day, the children discovered this tin in a rubbish dump and now the closest they get to eating sardines is make believe. [Photo: Chris de Bode]
A stereotypical photo depicting hunger in sub-Saharan Africa might show a gaunt victim. When photographer Chris de Bode traveled to Cameroon–in an area where conflict, drought, and a swelling population of refugees have led to ongoing food shortages–he focused on the food instead.
On one plate, with rice, mango leaves, and maize, we see the half-eaten meal of a family that fled from a village on the border with Nigeria when armed men attacked. They now live in a makeshift refugee camp, but there isn’t enough food; after begging, they’ve managed to gather one meal for the day for seven people.
This is a bowl of “super cereal.” This milky liquid is an emergency supplementary food for children and adults. It is used as a protein supplement to prevent and address nutritional deficiencies. It is a precooked powder of corn, wheat, and rice fortified with micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) and contains milk powder, sugar, and oil. The powder is mixed with water and cooked for 5 to 10 minutes as a porridge. [Photo: Chris de Bode]
Another photo shows a bowl of “super cereal,” a milky white porridge used as an emergency supplement. Another plate, with ground maize and a green sauce made from mango leaves, shows the daily meal for a mother and her two youngest children. Her two older children, ages 12 and 15, will have to go to a nearby village to beg for their own food.
At a market, de Bode photographed items like a stunted yellow pepper, a battered onion, and a bruised, split tomato–all luxuries, though an onion costs about a penny–and maize husks, which also find their way into many meals, despite their toughness and lack of nutrition.
It’s onion season this month in the extreme-north of Cameroon, and most stalls in Mémé market have dishevelled red onions to sell. Eating vegetables is a luxury in this part of the world. One onion costs 10 CFA (2¢) from the market. [Photo: Chris de Bode]
Cameroon has been at war with Boko Haram since 2014. The northern part of the country, already the poorest region before the conflict began, has been especially hard hit. Boko Haram has kidnapped hundreds of people and forced them to work as farmers for the group; in some places, militants have issued death threats to farmers who don’t want to give up part of their harvest. The group has also stolen at least $6 million worth of livestock. When some farmers have fled from their homes because of attacks, even if they’ve later returned, they’ve often missed crucial timing for planting or tending to their crops.
Near the border with Nigeria, the government has forced farmers to cut down tall crops, like maize, because of the risk that enemy soldiers might be hiding in the field. Border closures have also decimated the local economy. To add to the challenges, the region is struggling with drought. Lake Chad–which spanned an area almost the size of Maryland in 1963–has shrunk by 90%, making it harder to irrigate crops. Some brands of fertilizer have been banned because they can also be used in explosives. Traders sometimes can’t deliver food to markets because of violence. And tens of thousands of Nigerians fleeing violence have come to Cameroon, further straining limited food supplies (the government has been criticized for forcibly sending some refugees back).
Earlier this year, the UN reported that only a tiny fraction of the aid money needed in the region had been received. “We call it a silent emergency, where there’s not enough awareness and response and funding to support the needs at the scale that they are,” says Alex Carle, director of programs and partnerships at the British Red Cross.
A bag of tanne leaves used to season bland food. These leaves are from a potato plant and can be bought in the local market. It’s a speciality to this region of the extreme-north of Cameroon. When you only eat one meal day, and the options are bland boiled maize, people look for anything to add some flavor to their meal. This bag costs 50 CFA (less than 10¢). [Photo: Chris de Bode]
The branches of the Red Cross working in the region provide cash to support some people in the area (giving them the option to spend it on food, when food is available, or on whatever else is needed, like repairing homes damaged in fighting), and work to bring in food when it runs out at markets–though the conflict and treacherous roads make that difficult. The organization reached out to Chris de Bode to create the photo series.
“One of the most important decisions I [made] was to kind of stay away from the stereotypical image we have from these hunger-torn areas where people suffer, and make these images which we all know,” says de Bode, who visited Cameroon in 2017 to take the pictures. “I felt by doing the same, which I’ve done a lot over the years, it wouldn’t add anything. Images of someone suffering can be exploitative, he believes. And if they’re commonplace, they’re also easier to ignore. Looking at a plate of food–not unlike the parade of meals depicted on Instagram–makes it easier for someone thousands of miles away to begin to imagine themselves in the same situation.
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