"This month, I have taken up my two-year contract with the MSF Emergency Unit. From now on, I have to be ready to leave for emergency missions within a couple of days."
Contrast is rife in Biraul. The very poor sit shoulder-to-shoulder with the… slightly less poor. Nervous, skinny children tag along behind their overweight parents.
Not everyone in India views malnutrition in the same light. There exists a pervasive idea that the kids are just thin. As one official callously implied,
We’ve all seen the pictures. I vividly remember my mother telling me to “think of the starving Ethiopians” whenever I left food on my plate as a child.
Reena* is a four-and-a-half year old girl, who in her younger days was partial to eating a bit of soil. Her parents have brought her to us out of simple desperation.
The "Biraul Block" (Darbhanga District, Bihar State, India) has a population of about 300,000 people, many of whom are not wealthy. Biraul town centre is bustling to say the least.
