Malnutrition: Mixture of poverty and poor diet

Evi Mariani, The Jakarta Post/Sumba Island, East Nusa Tenggara

While people in big cities begin to take up food combining, complete with the complicated calculations of daily consumed nutrition, most people in villages in Sumba still lag far behind in diet knowledge, regarding eating merely as a way to fill their stomachs.

They even seem to be oblivious to the basic diet credo launched by the government in 1980's: Empat Sehat Lima Sempurna, meaning a diet of four elements, namely carbohydrates, animal protein, plant protein and vitamins will provide you with a healthy diet and adding another element, milk, would give you a perfect diet.

When asked about their daily meals they would answer timidly: "Rice, sometimes mixed with corn."

Every day? With no vegetables and protein-rich side dish?

"Well ... ," they usually did not answer clearly. Meat?

"Yes, sometimes. We eat meat in parties, like wedding ceremonies, funerals, farewell parties," they said.

Sumbanese people like parties. They usually make any occasion a reason to throw a party. They keep their livestock --pigs, buffaloes and cows -- for parties or dowry.

Visitors who expect to find red meat in local markets or warung (food stalls) will be disappointed. For many Sumbanese the term for party is even "eating meat".

Strangers also rarely find fish in Sumba, where most people are farmers, not fishermen.

Sumbanese also regard instant noodles as a special side dish in addition to rice.

"Yes, we like instant noodles. We eat it with rice," Rambu Hamu, a schoolteacher in Tanarara, East Sumba, said.

At tiny kiosks in remote villages instant noodles become one of the essential items besides cheap liquor and cigarettes.

The lack of knowledge of a healthy diet leads to malnutrition, which is apparent in their physical appearance. Most Sumbanese people are skinny or slender at best, while some have brownish hair caused by deficiency diseases. Most children are bony and reserved as if they did not have enough energy to be cheerful.

In fact, in June, the statistics on malnutrition recorded East Sumba regency as among three in East Nusa Tenggara that experienced a worrying state of malnutrition.

Of course, poverty is where malnutrition begins.

Sumba island, which now consists of East Sumba and West Sumba regencies, is a place where poverty prevails.

According to poverty information and data issued by the Central Bureau of Statistics in 2004, some 42.04 percent of West Sumba's 400,000 population lived under the poverty line of Rp 93,882 (US$10) a month. Neighboring East Sumba was slightly better off, with 40.32 percent of its 198,186 population living under its poverty line of Rp 110,479.

In comparison, in barren Gunung Kidul, Yogyakarta, notorious for the number of its residents who have hanged themselves out of pverty-driven frustration, 25.19 percent of the population struggled on incomes below the poverty line of Rp 121,436 a month.

From 350 regencies all over the archipelago, West Sumba ranks the 336th and East Sumba the 335th in terms of percentage of poor people.

Most people on the island merely subsist rather than earn a living. Although some farmers are wealthier from exporting horses, cows, buffaloes and, more recently, vanilla, most Sumbanese merely grow plants for their subsistence and shepherd other people's cattle on their vast savanna.

The woes of poverty are aggravated by a lack of knowledge about health and facilities.

Due to its topography of hilly, extensive savanna, many Sumbanese live far away from each other and, as a consequence, far away from public facilities like clinics and schools.

On a typical weekday morning, a public area of an elementary school building and a small clinic at a village in Matawai La Pau district looked deserted, with closed doors and windows. The nearest patrons, four families, lived about 10 kilometers north of the buildings.

Nutrition campaigners would certainly have to walk dozens kilometers to reach and talk to the villagers.

However, Sumba people, who are well-known for their stoicism, seem to be at ease with their situation.

As one Sumbanese once told The Jakarta Post: for us, having a meal every single day is enough," said Daniel L. Ledy.