On a recent sunny afternoon, two refugees sat in shelters a few blocks apart, not far from the U.S. border. Both women had fled a sudden onslaught of violence that upended their lives. Both had flown to Tijuana hoping to enter the United States. Neither knew what to expect.

Only one of them – Kristina from Ukraine – would be given refuge in the U.S.

Graciela, from Mexico, has spent the past three months sleeping in a crowded tent in a migrant shelter, waiting for a chance to present her asylum claim to U.S. officials. She’s still there.

She says it’s hard to beat back feelings of jealousy. “I hope they make it to their destination,” she says of the vanloads of Ukrainian refugees she’s seen ferried past her shelter by volunteers. “But it’s hard not to wonder: Why them and not us?”

Kristina, an aspiring athletic-wear designer, knows nothing of Graciela’s fate. She has not stepped foot outside her shelter since she arrived. But she knows she’s fortunate to have escaped Odesa, where a family of acquaintances was killed in a Russian missile attack last month.

“I hope in the U.S. I finally feel safe,” she says. As a Ukrainian, she was exempted from the COVID-19 rule holding Graciela back. 

The two women’s stories illustrate a glaring disparity in the ways U.S. border authorities treat different refugees. But, some see a silver lining in Kristina’s experience, and that of thousands of her compatriots.

U.S. border officials have for years explained the long delays facing Graciela and people like her from Central America, Haiti, and elsewhere in Latin America, by a lack of staff. Now, “there is no justification for … saying the resources don’t exist. It’s only about where resources are directed,” says Soraya Vázquez, deputy director of the Tijuana branch of Al Otro Lado, a legal aid organization.

“With the arrival of the Ukrainians we saw they only have to choose to put those resources toward the situation at the border.”

Whitney Eulich

Graciela and her family fled to Tijuana earlier this year after their home was attacked by armed men in unmarked uniforms. After three months squeezed into a tent, the grandmother says it was difficult watching the ease with which Ukrainian refugees were processed at the U.S. border. "I don't like feeling jealous, but it's hard not to wonder: Why them and not us? " she says, sitting in a Tijuana shelter April 29, 2022.

“Completely stressed”

Graciela woke up earlier this year to the shouted orders of armed men. Her family was forced out of their home by strangers dressed in what looked like police uniforms, but without any official insignias. The men burned down her home, and the houses on either side of it, kidnapped her husband and two neighbors, and left. 

“Who were they? What did they want?” she asks, squeezing the hand of her granddaughter who sits beside her on a folding chair at the back of a Tijuana shelter. The family got away as fast as they could, unsure if the attackers would come back. They took shelter in a church, which provided them with clothes, food, and help buying plane tickets to the border.

“My only thought was we needed to get as far away as possible,” Graciela says, tears rolling down under her mask. “We had no idea the border was closed.”

It remains closed by Title 42, a Trump-era public health order implemented to slow the arrival of COVID-19 across U.S. borders. It soon transformed into an immigration-enforcement tool, keeping migrants and refugees out, even as mask bans and other pandemic restrictions are lifted.

U.S. migration policy has been “extremely restrictive” on its southern border for decades, says Juan Antonio Del Monte, a researcher at the College of the Northern Border outside Tijuana. Now, he says, “the system is completely stressed.”

Thousands of migrants and refugees, mostly from Mexico and Central America, have crowded into temporary shelters dotted around Tijuana. Children kick deflated soccer balls and clamber on chain-link fences while parents cook on open stoves or scroll through their mobile phones, looking for promising news. Come nightfall, bunk beds, tents, and flimsy mattresses cover every inch of floor space.

Some shelters are building extensions, their concrete foundations and steel frames symbolizing the increasing permanence of what refugees had hoped would be a temporary wait.

Jorge Duenes/Reuters

Two Ukrainian refugees seeking asylum in the United States read in the Benito Juarez sports complex, set up as a shelter by the local government, in Tijuana, Mexico, April 23. Unlike Central Americans, Ukrainian refugees have been fast-tracked for asylum.

Even if Title 42 is revoked, it is unclear how easily Latin American refugees would secure asylum interviews with Border Patrol officials.  Before the COVID-19 restriction, U.S. officials operated a metered system that allowed 10 to 15 refugees each day the chance to approach the port of entry in Tijuana. 

Ukrainian refugees, on the other hand, were processed by the hundreds every day after they began arriving here in early March. An estimated 14,000 were granted one-year humanitarian permits to enter the United States through late April.

“This shows that with political will, you can get things done,” says Dr. Del Monte. “Ukrainians were processed quickly and efficiently.” The U.S. authorities “have demonstrated they can handle this.”

An outpouring of support

Also working in the Ukrainian refugees’ favor are compatriots who rallied to help them, setting an example of solidarity that local advocates would like to see replicated among other immigrant communities.

“They arrived from the other side of the world and were met by a community of Ukrainians from the U.S. who supported them and managed everything in an orderly way,” says José Maria Garcia Lara, director of the Movimiento Juventud 2000 shelter.

Inna Levien, a volunteer coordinator from Orange County, is proud of the work she and an estimated 4,000 others pulled off in Tijuana.

“There’s just been an outpouring of support: churches with supplies, help from the local government. All needs have been met,” she says.

Whitney Eulich

Volunteers from the U.S. pray around Inna Levien, a volunteer coordinator from Orange County, in Tijuana, Mexico on April 29, 2022, at the Benito Juarez sports complex, where Ukrainian refugees were sheltered while waiting to cross into the United States this spring.

That means that money was instantly forthcoming to pay for plane tickets to Mexico City, where Ukrainians in Mexico are now waiting for entry to the U.S. through the newly launched Uniting for Ukraine program. It means that the Unidad Deportivo de Benito Juarez refugee shelter, which three years ago was a densely packed, muddy crush of Central American families, has been transformed into a comfortable haven, serving Ukrainians ham, cheese, and lettuce sandwiches. And, it means that somebody was there to help Kristina Koleganova, the young woman from Odesa, quickly fill out the paperwork that will get her into the U.S.

The volunteers “didn’t just arrive with materials, like beds and food, but with legal support and guidance. That’s something we need to replicate among other groups,” says Dr. Del Monte.

“It will require political will. But we can’t do that if there isn’t money,” he says.

Racism is also at play, migration experts say. There’s broad agreement that it was a good thing that U.S. officials helped Ukrainian refugees into the U.S. so speedily. But, it’s hard not to notice the physical and economic differences between those ushered through – and those who have been stuck waiting at the border for months, if not years.

“Even if you don’t want to believe it, it’s real,” Ms. Vázquez says. “Poor people with dark skin are not treated the same way” at U.S. ports of entry.

On the outskirts of Tijuana, nearly 1,000 migrants and refugees have hunkered down at the Embajada de Jesus shelter. Ruby, who fled an abusive partner in a violent corner of Mexico eight months ago, watches as her 11-year-old son practices the song “Despacito” on a donated guitar. 

“Watching the Ukrainians cross the border, it felt like someone was clipping my wings,” she says. “If my eyes were blue, or my hair was yellow, would my family’s story be different?” she asks. “Even if we are all fleeing different situations, at the end of the day, it’s all the same.

“We’re all running for our lives.”

In early April, more than a thousand scientists around the world decided to protest. They chained themselves to government buildings, blocked intersections, and staged sit-ins. In Spain, they threw fake blood on the facade of the parliament building. In Los Angeles, police arrested a lab-coated crew who had attached themselves to a JPMorgan Chase building to oppose the financing of fossil fuels.  

“The scientists of the world have been being ignored,” said NASA climate scientist Peter Kalmus, voice trembling, as he stood with the other Los Angeles protesters. “It’s got to stop. We’re going to lose everything. ... We’re not lying; we’re not exaggerating.” 

The impetus for these demonstrations was a new report from some 200 authors and a United Nations group called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). For Dr. Kalmus and many others involved in climate research, the document screamed both warning and accusation – proof that governments, businesses, and individuals must immediately change course to avoid increasingly catastrophic impacts of climate change. It also gave road maps for avoiding worst-case scenarios – if people will follow them.

But what’s clear to the scientists isn’t always straightforward to everyone else.

In a study last year, researchers found that most Americans are confused by terms traditionally used to convey climate information, such as “tipping point” or “mitigation.” Add the acronym-heavy international climate world, with its multiple working groups, assessments, and “COPs” that have nothing to do with policing, and it’s easy to understand why the public’s reaction to these reports can differ from the scientists’.  

“I don’t think people necessarily get how the IPCC works,” says Jacquelyn Gill, a paleoecologist and climate communications expert at the University of Maine. “Acronyms, scientific jargon, all of those things, they become a persistent bumper in scientific communications.”

What is the IPCC and why does it matter?

The World Meteorological Organization and the U.N. Environment Program joined forces in 1988 to create the IPCC, an international body with the goal of reviewing the science, economic impact, and future threats of climate change. Since then, hundreds of scientists have volunteered every IPCC “assessment period,” which lasts about seven years, to go over tens of thousands of published studies and distill their meaning. 

“It’s taking this mass of knowledge, taking all the experts involved, saying ... ‘This is what we know; this is what policymakers need to know,’” says David McCollum, senior scientist at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and an IPCC author. 

This “big picture” process is both exhaustive and bureaucratic. The IPCC staff carefully picks scientists to represent different regions and disciplines. Expert reviewers and representatives from the world’s governments look at what the scientists have written, and negotiate line by line in order to come to a consensus about the summary report.

This last step ensures that U.N. member countries have “buy-in” to the reports, explains Katherine Leitzell, a communications specialist who worked with the IPCC.

“The governments can’t just come back and say no, that’s nonsense.”

Within the IPCC, three “working groups” of scientists tackle three big aspects of climate change: the physical science, such as how oceans are warming; who and what is vulnerable and how they might adapt; and mitigation, or ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  

This “trilogy” of IPCC work goes alongside another U.N. process, the Conference of the Parties, or COP, which focuses on policymaking.

The IPCC reports are supposed to help policymakers, businesses, municipalities, and even individuals make the most informed climate decisions possible.

What do the IPCC reports actually say?

Even though these reports are based on existing research, they still pack a message. 

As Inger Andersen, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, put it in a press conference last month, the first two reports in the IPCC’s current cycle show that climate change is happening and is causing huge disruption to both the natural and human worlds. The third, most recent report shows that “we are still not doing enough to cut greenhouse gas emissions.” 

A quick pause here. “Greenhouse gas emissions” means the heat-trapping gases – such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide – that humans are releasing into the atmosphere alongside natural volumes of these gases. Carbon dioxide makes up the bulk of these, so that’s why there’s a lot of talk about “carbon footprints” or “decarbonization.” Most of our carbon emissions come from burning fossil fuels. But we also release carbon dioxide in chemical processes, such as the one that makes cement, or by cutting down trees. 

The past 20 years saw the highest increase in emissions in human history. And greenhouse gas concentrations in the
atmosphere are also at their highest levels in the history of humans on Earth, researchers say. That means that unless there are big, quick changes, it is all but inevitable that the impacts on human society and the natural world will get more severe.

“The jury has reached the verdict and it is damning,” said U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres at a press conference in April. The new report “is a file of shame, cataloging the empty pledges that firmly put us on track towards an unlivable world. We are on a fast track to climate disaster.”

Back up. Climate disaster?

Well, here’s the thing about the concept of a climate disaster: Scientists know that with more warming come more negative impacts, and also the chance for natural cycles to reach “tipping points,” or moments when normal natural processes unravel, potentially causing even more warming. But it’s not so easy to describe what “disaster” means. Many people already are suffering catastrophic impacts of climate change, such as increased wildfires, deeper drought and crop failure, and extra-severe storms. 

And what, actually, will happen in the future largely depends on one unknown variable: human behavior. 

“The biggest uncertainty when it comes to our climate future is what we do,” says Dr. Gill. “Not what the Earth is going to do.”

So what can we do? 

Humans – whether operating as governments, businesses, or individuals – can take steps to either limit warming or allow it to continue exponentially. And across society, we already have the tools to lower emissions. The most recent IPCC report explored how this could happen in various sectors, including transportation, agriculture, and energy, and also in different countries, with their unique economies, development statuses, and existing challenges.

“Scientists and governments know how to reduce emissions quickly,” says Dr. McCollum, whose work with the IPCC focused on assessing models of future warming, under differing scenarios of human behavior. Achieving the most ambitious goals would require massive changes, he says, “but there are things we know how to do now.”

This includes everything from speeding up the electrification of transportation systems (think electric cars and a robust charging station network), to making sure new construction meets stringent energy efficiency standards, to revamping financial systems to ensure adequate funding for experimental climate technology.  

A rapid decrease of fossil fuel use is necessary to quickly lower emissions, the report’s authors found. And the more we do, and quickly, is better. 

But scientists caution against seeing climate change as a pass-fail situation, where if the world surpasses a certain warming level – 1.5 degrees Celsius is the one mentioned regularly – we’ve “lost.”  

“Every fraction of a degree is worth fighting for,” says Dr. Gill. “And that will always be true.”

The downpour was too little, too late.

After weeks of drought, the single night of rain brought more tragedy to Safiya Abdullahi, a goat and camel herder in Somaliland. “We lost a third of our animals. They were so weakened from lack of food and water they got stuck in the mud,” she says, surveying the dead animals outside Qool Cadey, a desert hamlet in Somaliland.

Even as she dragged a dead goat away from the cluster of fabric-covered huts where she and her family live, Ms. Abdullahi remained stoic.

“I should not complain, other families in the area have lost more,” she says. “If things get worse, our neighbors will share their food and water with us, God willing.”

But few of her neighbors have much to share.

Across the Horn of Africa, three consecutive failed rainy seasons, and a slow start to a fourth one, have pushed parts of Somalia, Ethiopia, and northern Kenya to the brink of famine amid the worst drought in 40 years. And the 20 million people in the region who could require urgent food assistance by year-end face a double blow: Russia’s war in Ukraine – a key global exporter of grains –  is pushing food prices to record levels.

In Somalia alone, including the breakaway region of Somaliland, hunger has doubled since the start of 2022. “More than six million people, nearly 40% of the population, face acute food insecurity by midyear,” says Alessandro Abbonizio, communications officer for the World Food Program in East Africa. At least 81,000 people face catastrophic hunger – a situation marked by extreme levels of malnutrition and a high likelihood of death. 

In better times, pastoralists like Ms. Abdullahi drink the milk and eat the meat provided by their animals. Now, the drought has forced families to desperate measures. “These days we eat a mixture of shredded wheat, maize, and water, the same food we feed the animals,” says Sahara, a herder living 25 miles south of the regional capital of Hargeisa, as her three young children huddle around her. 

Even such meager diets are increasingly difficult to procure. “Things are getting more difficult by the day. The cost of wheat and corn has gone up almost 50% since the beginning of the year,” says Mahamud Hassan, who lives with his parents and five younger siblings in the southern Maroodi Jeex region, an area classified by the Famine Early Warning System as one step below famine.

David Bruckmeier

A group of underfed camels in the semidesert south of Qool Cadey, Somaliland, April 26, 2022. Herders in the area have lost many animals in recent weeks due to the ongoing drought. But solutions are emerging. “There are ways to make pastoralism sustainable,” says Francesco Rigamonti, an Oxfam official.

That’s partly due to a war taking place over 2,500 miles away. Together, Ukraine and Russia account for nearly 30% of the world’s wheat production and a fifth of global corn output. 

“Up to 90% of the wheat consumed in East African countries comes from Ukraine and Russia, so disruptions in global food supply chains hit these communities very hard and at a time when affordable food is most needed,” notes Lia Lindsey, a senior humanitarian policy adviser at Oxfam America.

And the consequences of food shortages extend beyond hunger, says Francesco Rigamonti, a regional humanitarian coordinator for Oxfam. “Parents keep their kids at home because school is expensive. And there’s a dowry system [in parts of the region], which means that some families marry off their daughters at a younger age because the husband’s family pays them a certain amount of money,” he says. 

“We also see an increase in violence at home because of the stress the situation places on families.” 

Climate-smart agriculture 

Last month, donors pledged some $1.4 billion in emergency aid to help alleviate the food crisis – a huge sum, but one that aid agencies say covers only the bare minimum of needs. And pouring money into such crises doesn’t necessarily resolve long-term issues. 

But a growing number of local organizations are offering homegrown initiatives they hope will build resilience against adverse climatic events.

“It is late for those who already perished, but not too late for those that are on the verge of collapse,” Dr. Hussein Haji, director of the Somali Agriculture Technical Group said in an e-mail. Future interventions, he says, should focus on “climate smart agriculture.”

Dr. Haji’s organization is already rolling out solutions that can bolster farmers’ ability to withstand future droughts. They include relatively simple measures, from introducing the use of early maturing, higher-yield varieties of staple crops such as sorghum and maize, all the way to the use of drip irrigation systems, which significantly reduce the use of water. 

In southern Somalia, the group hosts demonstration sites where pastoralists learn about techniques to improve fodder production, which could help families like the Abdullahis and Hassans reduce livestock deaths and boost milk yields significantly. 

Governments have also taken steps to reduce their reliance on ad hoc aid interventions by international organizations. In response to previous droughts, Kenya and Ethiopia have set up permanent social safety nets through which cash is allocated to vulnerable families. The idea is to create a buffer that helps communities cope with problems before they turn into full-blown crises. 

In Somalia, where weak central government authority previously hampered similar efforts, the World Food Program has helped create a population database that is being used to deliver financial assistance to those affected by drought. The organization plans to transfer the system’s operation to the government in the future.

“There are ways to make pastoralism sustainable,” says Mr. Rigamonti, the Oxfam official. For starters, doing so requires empowering rural communities, instead of making decisions over their heads. “Cattle, goats, sheep are so important to people here. People’s identities are closely linked to their livestock.”

It is a sentiment echoed by Mr. Hassan: “If our animals survive, we will survive.”

Courtesy of Stilt NG

Elizabeth Ita speaks at the 2022 Children's Health Mental Week. Held simultaneously across three southeastern states in Nigeria, the event is one way Stilt NG, founded by Ms. Ita, hopes to demystify the concept of mental health.

Elizabeth Ita had her first encounter with depression when she was 12 years old. After her beloved father died in their hometown of Calabar in southern Nigeria, she had no one to talk to about her grief – or the difficulties that quickly followed. “Nothing could have prepared me for that loss,” she says. “I felt overwhelmed, sad, guilty, and angry.” 

Living her teenage years under a dark cloud, Ms. Ita was among the one-third of Nigerians who have mental health challenges. But even if Ms. Ita or her family had wanted to seek professional help, access to such resources is scarce – just 300 psychiatrists serve Nigeria’s 206 million citizens.

Feeling lost and bullied at school, Ms. Ita spiraled. “It was as if there was a song in my brain playing on repeat and telling me I was stupid, worthless, and that no one loved me or cared,” she says.

A recent university graduate, Ms. Ita eventually found a renewed sense of purpose through volunteering. She also found solace and solidarity as she shared her story with other young Africans who had been through similar struggles. The experience drove her to set up Stilt NG, a nonprofit organization powered by 25 young volunteers who have all successfully dealt with mental health issues. 

Healthwise, it’s a rare bright spot for Africa’s most populous country, which has a mental health crisis that advocates say the government pretends doesn’t exist. But as such organizations – typically set up by young people – spread, many hope to slowly change the way the issue is discussed among Nigerians, underscoring the importance of mutual support, care, and a lack of judgment in helping people move forward. 

Courtesy of Stilt NG

Participants march on Oct. 11, 2021, in Calabar, Nigeria, to raise awareness about mental health. Marches like these and other public events seek to supplant a culture of silence about the issue. They also underscore the importance of mutual support, care, and a lack of judgment in helping people move forward.

“Possession by an evil spirit”

One sunny morning in February, Ms. Ita stood outside a community center in the port city of Calabar as several buses full of high school students pulled up. In all, some 250 children gathered for Children’s Mental Health Week.

Held simultaneously across three southeastern states in Nigeria, the event is one way Stilt NG hopes to demystify the concept of mental health. 

They face an uphill battle. More than half of all respondents to a 2019 survey believed that mental illness is the result of “possession by an evil spirit,” while 24% stated it was a punishment for doing something bad, highlighting the kind of popular misconceptions Ms. Ita and her team will need to counter.

“These children will today be introduced to something they might be going through but have never heard about,” Ms. Ita said as the children streamed into an assembly room. “I have confidence that the knowledge they gain today will make our society better.” 

Once the hall was full, she began by asking anyone who had ever felt depressed to raise their hands. In the long silence that followed, not a single hand was raised. Taking a deep breath, she started to tell the children her own journey.

She told them about her father dying, and how she’d been bullied at school. She told them about how she’d started self-harming. And she told them about how when she tried to talk with both her mom and her aunt, they’d brushed her off. “What do [you] even have to think of, or worry about, at such a young age?” they’d told her. 

After sharing her story, she asked the students once again. If you have ever felt this way, please lift your hands.

This time, around half of those in the room silently raised their hands. 

A culture of silence 

The stigma surrounding mental health in Nigeria is sustained by a culture of silence and outdated portrayals in local media, says Dr. Umar Baba Musami, a consultant psychiatrist at the University of Maiduguri.

But government negligence is at the heart of the problem. Just 3.5% of Nigeria’s health budget is assigned to mental health care, most of which is swallowed up by staff salaries and hospital-based care. The latter puts treatment further out of reach for millions who rely on clinics, particularly in rural areas. In Maiduguri, a city that has endured 17 years in the crosshairs of a violent sectarian conflict between Boko Haram Islamists and the Nigerian army, there is only one specialized hospital offering mental health treatment.

Among the most damaging policies is the colonial-era law known as the Lunacy Act, which is “the worst thing that has happened to the mentally ill in Nigeria,” Dr. Musami says. 

The law prescribes that those deemed “lunatics” by a judge in a local court or a doctor should be arrested and confined to “asylums,” encouraging the treatment of people with mental illnesses as criminals. In Nigeria, such institutions today are typically understaffed and overcrowded, and routinely include abuse such as chaining patients to the floor. 

But, says Dr. Musami, “trends have changed, and the country needs to move along with that trend.” 

Courtesy of Stilt NG

A student of St. Patrick's College in Calabar, Nigeria, shares his story with his schoolmates as Elizabeth Ita watches at Stilt Ng's 2019 Children's Mental Health Week. Since launching that same year, the organization has reached some 5,000 young people through public talks, publications, and visits to schools.

Fragile gains 

For now, updating archaic practices mostly falls on nascent nongovernmental organizations like Stilt NG. 

After Ms. Ita shared her story with the schoolchildren in February, many were eager to ask questions about mental wellness – the first time some had ever been able to do so. One student wanted to know if people got “madness” from what she called “spiritual attacks.”

A volunteer called Ifeanyi Agwazia stepped forward to answer the question. He explained that rather than “madness,” the medical term was “psychosis,” a physical process that could arise from drug abuse, trauma, untreated fever and – he concluded to rapt silence –  untreated mental illness.

Since its launch in 2019, Stilt NG’s team has reached some 5,000 young people through public talks, publications, and visits to schools. Before starting outreach programs, the organization’s volunteers receive training from mental health experts on emotional intelligence, active listening, and different types of disorders. And although the main focus is raising awareness, volunteers make referrals to professional psychiatrists when necessary.

But even as Stilt NG expands, any gains are fragile. Recently, after days of lobbying schools so they could hold awareness talks, only three agreed to open their doors. 

For those whom the organization does reach, though, the results can be life-changing.

Laurel Ugoji endured years of bullying in secondary school by her teachers who constantly told her she wouldn’t amount to much. 

“Nothing was worth doing,” says Ms. Ugoji. “I got awards, but ... a few times I rejected them because I concluded I wasn’t worth anything. What could a dull girl achieve after all?” 

Not until a friend encouraged her to attend Stilt NG sessions, both in person and online, did she slowly find a support network. 

“I gained my strength back,” says Ms. Ugoji, who is now a university graduate. “I saw myself as more than a conqueror – [I am] a valid human, one who is loved.” 

This article was published in collaboration with Egab.

Xander Peters

When writer Xander Peters and his partner, Cynthia, bought their first home, they were determined to tame the adjacent vacant lot into a garden, seen here in progress in May 2021. They have since doubled the garden’s size.

Cynthia loved the house: an old turquoise cottage with yellow trim in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward. But it was the vacant lot next door that caught my eye. The seller told us it wasn’t an either-or deal. Our option was to buy both properties or move on. 

We bought both. We’d eaten a lot of potatoes to save up for the largest purchase of our lives. It was the cheapest home for sale in our neighborhood.

“Y’all are going to need a bigger lawn mower,” our real estate agent joked. 

We needed a wheelbarrow and a shovel, too. 

The lot was overgrown with tall grass and shrubby trees. It was thick with bits of trash, urban tumbleweeds thrown about by the wind coming off the Mississippi River. 

Growing food is a rite of passage in rural East Texas, where I grew up. Heads of households feed their families: Memmaw always had homegrown tomatoes ripening on a windowsill. The same is true for my Uncle Ray. My cousin Joe is building out a 60-acre farm back home. My dad is back to keeping a garden, and even dug a fish pond. Now I had a household of my own to feed. And because I tend to be zealous, I went big.

I ordered a dump truck-load of topsoil – 6 cubic yards. The pile came up to my shoulders. One order became three, then six: 36 cubic yards of good earth. 

I built raised beds, stacking salvaged bricks and concrete blocks: six 9-foot-by- 6-foot beds. Then a bed 25 feet square, plus two more, each about 15 feet by 20 feet. Three-quarters of the lot was now garden. 

As I dug in the beds, each shovelful brought up bits of the Lower Ninth Ward’s past, before Hurricane Katrina profoundly changed it; pink bathroom tiles; a rusty spark plug; slabs of concrete on which a house had rested. Memories and secrets rose from the soil. 

There were other discoveries as well. Working outside, I was available to my neighbors. I found conversation, friendship, and community. 

Xander Peters

The first late spring harvest out of the writer and his partner's garden project yielded heaps of zucchini, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, and more.

Roy, our block’s unofficial grounds­keeper, had been mowing folks’ yards for decades. He told me about the couple who’d owned our home, and how they’d been the neighborhood’s peacekeepers. I met “The Praline Lady,” her preferred title, as she drove her motorized wheelchair around the block, hawking homemade candy. Athelgra was a member of a famous musical family. (The Dixie Cups’ big hit was “Chapel of Love,” in 1964.)

Recently, our neighbor Will walked up to ask what I was growing. I pointed to the lettuce, mustard, and collard greens. I invited him to help himself. He did. Katrina came up. 

Will pointed to the newly built house across the street. When we first moved in, what was left of a Creole cottage had been there. It was torn down not long after – the source of the bricks for edging my beds. Will told me he’d slept in that cottage after Katrina. He’d had nowhere else to go – nowhere that was dry. 

Our neighborhood’s scars are still evident, mentally and physically. Abandoned buildings line our main corridor. Gunshots ring out at night, though they seem to be receding as time goes on. The Lower Ninth is recovering, but without many who once called it home. 

In the 1950s and until Katrina in 2005, the Lower Ninth had one of the nation’s highest rates of Black homeownership. Only about one-third of the Lower Ninth’s Black population returned. Many homes and lots were sold at tax auctions. Millennials like us are moving in now. 

I know from my upbringing that sharing homegrown produce helps to sow unity in a community, and that was another motivation for the garden: produce as olive branch. 

We’re 18 months into the project. The lot has been tamed. It’s an actual garden, almost paradise. 

I stand in our kitchen, looking at bags and bags of food from the garden, and note our severe lack of freezer space. “What are you doing?” I ask myself with a laugh. I don’t have a good answer yet.

But I do know that the garden is not just about growing food for us or our neighbors. It’s about growing a sense of place and home. It’s about my growing as a person, too – the new head of a household. 

Eighteen months ago, Roy would have passed us by on his bicycle, instead of stopping to encourage me as I sweated, shovel in hand. I would have been just another face to The Praline Lady. I would have never known Athelgra is a famous musician. Without our big garden, I wouldn’t have come to know the weight my neighbors still carry from Katrina. I would not have understood my new community, my new family in New Orleans.

Reuters/file

An ear of wheat is seen in a field near the village of Hrebeni in Ukraine .

In one way, the war in Ukraine is now a world war: Dozens of countries are working to curb a global panic over rising food prices – a panic triggered by Russia’s deliberate actions against Ukrainian farmers and their abundant exports, especially wheat, which many countries have relied on.

“We must do everything to work together to address this food security challenge, which is important for the world,” said Charles Michel, president of the European Council, on a visit to the key Ukrainian port of Odesa on May 9.

Last Friday, for example, Austria welcomed a train carrying 2,000 metric tons of Ukrainian corn, part of a European effort to open a “grain bridge” for Ukrainian exports blocked by the Russian navy from being shipped from Black Sea ports.

Neighboring Bulgaria and Romania have opened their ports for Ukrainian food exports. On a visit to Ukraine last week, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau offered help in sending food on the Danube River – another way to circumvent Russian blockades.

After the Feb. 24 invasion, the sudden loss of wheat exports from Ukraine pushed many countries to hoard their supplies, sending panic among global traders. Countries highly dependent on wheat also panicked. For the first time since 1988, Egypt raised the price of bread.

“If we do not get ahead of this thing, we will have not just famine in multiple countries around the world,” said David Beasley, executive director of the World Food Program.

To ease fears of food shortages, the Biden administration asked Congress to allocate $500 million for U.S. farmers to boost grain production. The European Commission took similar steps for its farmers. In addition, last month the United States pledged more than $600 million in humanitarian aid for six nations most in need of food: Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, and Yemen. India is looking at ways to boost its wheat exports to Africa.

In other words, solutions to the war’s impact on food supplies are readily available if fears are lessened. “Take panicky markets with a grain of salt,” wrote Sarah Taber, an independent crop consultant, in Foreign Policy last month. “Markets aren’t oracles. They’re influenced by human beings, often acting on bad information and given to groupthink.”

The war has delivered the largest commodity-price shock since the 1970s, according to the World Bank. Yet enough countries have responded with fear-reducing steps to make a difference. After global food prices spiked in March, they stabilized in April, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization says. The world may be winning a war against food panic.