When the rains fail in the agriculture season, the Nyambes are unable to produce enough to meet their minimal food needs. The family further reduces the size of their meals as a coping mechanism and is forced to exchange its chickens and hoe for limited food. The parents and children increase foraging activities for wild foods and the parents increase charcoal and piecework activities. Because the crop failure is widespread, wild food sources are rapidly depleted, piecework opportunities disappear and there is an oversupply of charcoal, forcing down prices. Water sources dry up and the only remaining water source is used by both humans and animals, compounding the disease problem. When an NGO initiates a relief food distribution program for the needy in the community, the father is able to register his family. The Nyambes receive a family ration that helps to stabilize their food needs temporarily. The father becomes ill and develops TB but is unable to obtain treatment because the RHC does not have TB medication, and he cannot travel to the district hospital that is 80 km away. The children become more malnourished because they are continually ill, and the infant dies of malaria that was not treated since they could not afford medicines. The family is unable to get help from their extended family network since they are just as poor and negatively affected by the drought. The Nyambes are helped greatly by the food ration assistance, but when the next planting season arrives, the family does not have seed stock and tools to plant. The family can only do piecework on other farmers’ land. The father’s TB gets worse and he develops pneumonia. The father dies and the wife is left a widow. The Nyambe family is taken off the food distribution program after the father dies because the widow does not have the same influence on the community leadership. The widow is unable to get assistance from relatives and the orphan living with them remains. The family becomes increasingly food insecure, and the widow is forced to continually do piecework and charcoal production. The children also assist with foraging and charcoal production, but the adolescent girl becomes pregnant and the cycle continues.
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