Some 65,000 people are thought to be starving in the northern Ethiopian region of Kalu (population 222,000). There's a national election in the country on Sunday. And no one The Irish Times spoke to plans to vote.
Perhaps we spoke to the wrong people on Wednesday and Thursday, but among them were local aid workers, employment generation co-ordinators and farmers - "just those you would hope might be politicised", said Ms Nuala O'Brien, assistant director of Concern Ethiopia.
"The ERPDF [the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front] will win 99.9 per cent of the vote anyway," said one local aid worker in a bar in Combulsha, a town in the Kalu administrative region of south Wollo. When it was suggested that he could not complain about the government if he did not bother to vote for one of the 10 other parties, he said he had no complaints. He managed a nod and smile when it was put to him that perhaps he should.
The combination of fatalism - "Allah will provide" - and the almost total absence of any experience of having a meaningful say, or role, in their own future is, says Ms O'Brien, perhaps the greatest obstacle to the people taking ownership of their lives. "It's not just about providing food, building schools and implementing policies. Sustainable development is about showing the people the process of getting these things done, so as to encourage them to do it for themselves. That is the most important long-term aim."
There is also the fear of repercussions should anyone speak out. While farmers will privately criticise the government, there is no Ethiopian farmers' leader like Tom Parlon.
Instead, there are thousands like Alawa Indris (30). Her son, Sead Ahimed (1), may not be as severely malnourished as children in other parts of the country, but Wednesday morning found her sufficiently concerned to walk three hours over daunting, mountainous terrain to the village of Adame for the monthly supplementary food distribution. She would get 3 kg of bertha, a high-calorie food supplement provided by Ireland Aid.
"I came here this morning from my village, Gedro." Explaining that this was her sixth visit, she said she was advised to come by people who visited her village when the rains failed, for the second consecutive year, in September.
The local NGO workers measured and weighed children under five throughout 13 of the 35 kebeles, or districts, in the area. Children at less than 90 per cent of their ideal weight were targeted, as well as lactating and pregnant women. "When the rains failed the first time [1998] we bought grains at the market to eat. Then we were eating wild plants and the children were getting sick. We sold two oxen to buy seed. Then the harvest was poor again and we even sold our milking cow to buy food and seed. It has failed again and I fear this year will be even worse than last."
According to Mr Birhanu Tafete, local co-ordinator of the emergency feeding programme, malnutrition rates in the region "will probably increase". The emergency food distribution, which started last September, provided food to 9,350 people in 13 of the 35 kebeles. In January this was extended to 12,870 people in 16 kebeles. Some 37,333 people are also in receipt of a general grain ration.
As 19 kebeles are not getting any supplementary feeding, Mr Tafete says malnutrition there is probably going unchecked, though his programme has not the resources to target them. As it is, he says, the programme has only enough food to last until June.
According to Mr David Begg, chief executive of Concern, who is currently visiting Ethiopia, Wollo is "about one month behind Wayelita [in the south] where a full-scale famine situation exists".
In the targeted kebeles, where an estimated 24 per cent of under fives were malnourished in September, the children are gaining weight. However, once they reach 90 per cent of their proper weight they are discharged from the programme.
Sometimes they fall back "on purpose", says Ms O'Brien, as parents aim to get the ration again, often to share with other children. Alawa and her family eat, once a day, the traditional indirrah - a kind of pancake used to mop up meat or vegetables. Asked whether they ever eat meat or eggs she lifts her hands to her face and shakes her head smiling: "That's unthinkable."
Commenting on her current situation, she says she is "very happy" to see Sead more heavy and healthy. Asked about her hopes for him and her other three children, she says: "We work very hard but nature works against us. If it rains and we can harvest, the situation improves and we can send our children to school. Allah knows everything."
AFP adds: Sunday's election is the second-ever general election in Ethiopia, and polling takes place amid fears about the effect of drought and a possible resumption of the two-year-old war with Eritrea; 20.2 million Ethiopians, 75 per cent of those of voting age, are registered to vote.