She has just six kg (13 pounds) of cereal, two kg of beans and some vegetable oil that she has received from the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to keep them fed for a month. Kugarira, who has 12 children and grandchildren aged between three and 24, said her family is surviving on one meal a day. Apart from a few showers in mid-January, it hasn’t rained in Mafomoti since September and her maize, millet and sorghum crops have been destroyed. “It will not take us far so we will have to eat sparingly,” said Jesta Kugarira, 65. Local people, who should be looking forward to the harvest in late March, are instead awaiting its failure and wondering how to make do with meagre supplies of food aid. Midway through the farming season, the fields around the village are normally green at this time of the year but now they lie barren.
