It takes Ellen Sinoya, 43, two days to walk to work. She leaves her three children with their grandmother at home in Mwenye, a small village in southern Malawi’s Machinga District, then hikes across the border into Mozambique, stopping only to sleep by the side of the road. After working for a piece rate on a commercial farm for two or three days, she brings home 5,000 Malawian Kwacha ($3.00) — enough to feed her family on maize bran for two weeks. Then she makes the long walk again.
A year ago, Sinoya grew maize and rice on her own one-hectare farm, just yards from her doorstep. But in March 2023, Cyclone Freddy, the strongest tropical cyclone ever recorded, destroyed her home and land.
“I had to abandon my home,” says Sinoya. She returned in August, after living for five months in an evacuation camp, only to find her…
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