Petros Hlope, Swaziland "I started to build my house myself, brick by brick, it was my dream"

Swaziland has faced three years of bad harvests as a result of poor rains. Petros Hlope is a subsistence farmer in Mliba, 30 km north of the commercial centre, Manzini. His plans to build a home for his newborn daughter have been dashed by recurrent weather-related crop failures.

I started to build my house myself, brick by brick, it was my dream. I am a farmer, I am 25. I was 22 when we started to build, when the crops were good. I saved my money from the cash we got when we sold our surplus crops. I was able to buy blocks and cement for the house foundation: It was a start.

"My family members who live around us, and the neighbours, helped lay the house foundation. This was in 2002. We started to put the blocks up for the walls, you could see where each room would be. My wife Thembi had given me a daughter, her name is Nonhlanhla, so we needed that house.

"In 2003 it was my plan to buy roofing sheets, window frames and more building blocks. But this did not happen, because the crops failed.

"The maize died when the rains stopped. It was too hot, we lost everything but some small granules we could save to eat ourselves. There was nothing for the market, there was no cash.

"This year hailstorms destroyed the crop the second month of summer. What was left was finished off by the drought. There hasn't been much rain in the past 10 years. This year was the same, some rain, and then none when it is the hottest, and some later when it is too late.

"We live with my parents at their house. The building of my house ended the year it started, in 2002. Now the weeds have come, and if I do not burn these weeds, soon I won't be able to find this place.

"But it is only a house, and one day I hope to continue with it. Some people are suffering in different way. Some of these kids you see around here, they are not in school even though it is a school day: that is because their parents cannot afford to pay school fees.

"My crops, if they had lived, were going to build my house: the parents of these children were going to sell their maize for school fees. Some of these children may never return to their education."