🔅 Abrupt Funding Halt Threatens Millions
The World’s Oldest Desert & Sambusas: the MVP of Minnesota School Lunches
Good Morning from Zambia!
How Sambusas Became the MVP of Minnesota School Lunches
If you have a kid in Minnesota who won’t stop raving about the crispy, savory triangles they had at school, you can thank Mariam Mohamed and her sisters for bringing sambusas to the state’s lunch trays.
Hoyo, the Somali word for “mother,” is Mohamed’s Twin Cities-based frozen sambusa company. It now supplies these deep-fried delights to over two dozen school districts across the state, introducing thousands of students to the flavors of Somalia.
Beyond being just a lunchtime win, Sambusas also double up as a culinary passport. Stuffed with ground beef or lentils, spiced with garlic, cumin, and coriander, and wrapped in a crispy, golden shell, they’re a bite-sized bridge between cultures. Even the pickiest eaters can’t resist them.
Food has a way of sparking curiosity about distant lands, but this story goes deeper. It’s also about women empowering other women.
“From my heart, it was: How do I help women sustain their dignity and take care of their family?” Mohamed said.
Indeed, at 66, Mohamed’s journey is as inspiring as the sambusas themselves: Born in Somalia, she remembers a time when sambusas were a rare treat, served only during Ramadan or weddings. She moved to the U.S. for graduate school, earning two master’s degrees in plant and environmental sciences.
Fast forward to today, and Hoyo’s business is as much about dignity and opportunity as it is about the irresistible crunch of a perfectly fried sambusa.
Minnesota’s kids are growing up with a taste of Somalia, and thanks to Mohamed, they’re also getting a lesson in how food can nourish far more than the body.
PEPFAR on the Brink: How an Abrupt Halt in Funding Threatens Millions Worldwide
In a sudden turn of events, the Trump administration recently froze the work of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)—a global initiative widely credited with saving more than 25 million lives since its inception in 2003 by fellow republican President George W Bush. Almost overnight, health organizations in low-income countries were instructed to halt distribution of antiretroviral medications purchased with U.S. funds.
This directive, which was partly reversed by a waiver on Tuesday, has cast an ominous shadow over the future of a program that has long been hailed as a cornerstone of international public health.
At its heart, PEPFAR is a $7.5 billion commitment administered by the State Department to fight HIV/AIDS across the globe. Over the past two decades, it has supported millions of people—20 million and counting—with lifesaving treatments, prevention strategies, counseling, and community outreach. More than 5.5 million children were born free of the virus thanks to interventions funded by PEPFAR, shielding them from an infection that would otherwise threaten their lives and future prospects.
But as of last week, the program’s activities came to a sharp standstill. Doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and community health workers—an estimated 270,000 of them—were told not to report to work, leaving patients with HIV in a precarious limbo. Many of these workers serve in clinics that rely entirely on U.S. aid to stock medications, maintain laboratory services, and keep outreach efforts afloat. All of that ground to a halt when the freeze was announced.
Although Secretary of State Marco Rubio released a waiver soon after the freeze was imposed, it remains unclear whether this reprieve covers all facets of HIV care.
Catastrophic Domino Effects
The immediate effects of this pause extend far beyond a few missed medication doses. Antiretroviral therapy (ART) works by suppressing the HIV virus to undetectable levels. When these therapies stop—even for a short period—HIV can rebound.
Adding to the danger is the specter of drug resistance. If patients try to ration out their remaining pills, skip doses, or share their limited supply with others, the virus can mutate, weakening the effectiveness of first-line therapies. These hardier strains of HIV may then spread to other people in the community, effectively rolling back decades of progress in controlling the epidemic, with children at particular risk.
It’s tempting to think the fallout is confined to low-income countries, but many experts caution otherwise. First, an expanding pool of immunocompromised individuals can inadvertently give rise to new pathogenic threats. Tuberculosis (TB), for instance, often coexists with HIV; when immune systems weaken, TB finds a fertile ground. More alarmingly, novel or dangerous virus variants, including forms of the coronavirus, might evolve in individuals whose immune systems have trouble clearing infections.
On top of that, Americans stand to lose from any global surge in drug-resistant HIV. Since people and microbes frequently move across borders, newly resistant strains that emerge abroad can quickly appear in the U.S. This underscores how a freeze in PEPFAR’s operations can boomerang back, undermining progress at home as well as overseas.
A Hard Lesson in Self-Reliance
But some public health leaders also see in this crisis a hard wake-up call for nations that have long depended on the generosity of programs like PEPFAR. Eventually, countries do need to finance and manage their own HIV initiatives. But there is a world of difference between a carefully planned, years-long transition to local control and an abrupt cutoff without any preparation. The latter scenario effectively plunges national health programs into chaos—risking unimaginable harm to those who depend on these services.
The World’s Oldest Desert is in Namibia
Forget the Sahara—when it comes to parched landscapes, Dead Vlei in Namibia’s Namib-Naukluft Park claims the crown. This stark clay pan sits amid some of the tallest sand dunes on the planet, including the towering “Crazy Dune” (estimated at up to 400 meters).
Surrounded by fiery-orange dune slopes and under a sky of unrelenting blue, Dead Vlei gets less than 10 millimeters of rain per year—and some regions of the Namib Desert may have stayed bone-dry for 200 million years!
Ironically, Dead Vlei was once a wetland fed by the Tsauchab River. Over a thousand years ago, climate shifts and drifting sands sealed off the water supply. The marsh vanished, the acacia trees died, and the desert air is so hot it has preserved their skeletal trunks. Their blackened silhouettes now stand against a bleached clay floor, creating a surreal backdrop.
Despite punishing daytime heat—summer temperatures can occasionally touch 50°C—Dead Vlei lures adventurous travelers and photographers. The best times to visit are dawn or late afternoon, when the contrast of sunlit dunes and shadowed clay is most dramatic (and the heat slightly less punishing).
The eerie remains of centuries-old trees, deep orange dunes, and glaringly white clay combine into a vista that feels otherworldly. These one-of-a-kind views draw tourists from around the globe, proving that even in the world’s oldest desert, nature’s artistry endures—rain or no rain.
Food for Thought
“Lending a friend money turns him into an enemy.”
— Zanzibar Proverb