Photo: WFP/David Orr

Faces Of The Southern Africa Drought: Roseby Samson

World Food Programme
Published August 26, 2016
Last Updated March 1, 2019

Roseby Samson is a grandmother looking after seven orphaned children. She herself has lost eight children, five of them to HIV/AIDS. She lives in Zomba district in Malawi.

“I have a plot for some maize and some potatoes but we harvested very little, just enough to keep going until the end of August.

The crops withered and died because there was no rain.

“We planted twice but both times the crops withered and died because there was no rain. Now I’ll have to look for some casual work, preparing other people’s land or something, so there’s some money to buy food.

“Luckily I got some support from WFP last season and I hope we get it again soon, otherwise it will be very hard.”

This story originally appeared on panorama.wfp.org.