In Rwanda’s Gatumba sector, the rains haven’t stopped since October. Typically, there’s a respite between the fall and spring rainy seasons, with a break between January and March. This year, though, East Africa has been experiencing unprecedented flooding, triggering landslides, crippling aging, and inferior infrastructure, and destroying crop harvests. Iragenalives in the Kabuga community, and her family farms bananas and corn. They plant land close to the river to make irrigation easier during the dry season, but over the last year, the flooding has wiped out their crop and she is worried for her family. They rely on these harvests, not only for income but for their own food supply. She has noticed a troubling trend –weather events that typically drive their planting cycles are becoming more severe, and drawing out across seasons. Just two years ago, the fall rainy season was nearly non-existent, sending them into a drought. Now, she’s hearing of entire villages destroyed by flooding and people dying in landslides.
