News stories by Fidelis Zvomuya

Chapita Ramovha remembers the days when the Limpopo River lapped at the foot of his village in south Zimbabwe. He says that back then residents of Makakavhule village had to build high walls to protect their homes from flooding. 'The Limpopo River was a marvel to watch, a beauty of nature, a source of food and income for us who lived along it,' the subsistence farmer recalls.

Victoria Zanele KaMagwaza-Msibi admits she is no angel. But for 30 years she’s navigated through South Africa’s tough political landscape, mainly as a member of a male-dominated party, and now as the leader of her own political party.

Mavis Muchena sits on the veranda of her mud hut, a middle-aged single mother of four with a face worn beyond her years and hands creased from working the soil. She should represent the future of a renewed farming boom in Zimbabwe, but instead she represents its failure.

Eleven-year-old Irene Thembo* lies curled like a foetus on a white wooden bench for outpatients at a clinic in rural Zimbabwe. The orphan, whose parents died of HIV-related illnesses, is terribly sick.

Thandi Sihadi stands next to a dry tap. As a maize and dairy farmer in one of South Africa’s driest districts, the lack of running water is nothing new to her.