Swaziland: The crescent of drought

November, often the rainiest month of the year, has left most of Swaziland awash with flash floods: but in the eastern Lowveld, no rain has fallen, and the fear is of yet another drought year in which food aid will be needed. "Are we cursed, the people living here? Not a drop has fallen, not one drop," said Amos Zwane, a smallholder farmer near Lavumisa in the Shiselweni region in the south. The area is nearing its second decade of poor rainfall.