Endless Appetites: How the Commodities Casino Creates Hunger and Unrest

CHAPTER 4

A Recipe for Famine

Food distribution day doubles as a community gathering in Shala-Luka, the South Omo village to which Haylar Ayako has walked six miles to receive food. Farmers and pastoralist herders from outside the village start arriving hours before the 3 P.M. distribution begins. They dress in a mixture of foreign hand-me-downs and traditional garb. Ayako says tribal clothes are becoming more common again, as families have less money to buy the surplus T-shirts and skirts sent in bulk to Ethiopia, where, on this day in October 2008, more than 6 million people are at risk of starvation.

Older women gather around shade trees as some of the barefoot children, who are at varying levels of energy and health, play an impromptu soccer ...