"In the Horn of Africa, a climate change-induced drought is exposing cracks in the global food system and pushing humanitarian aid to a breaking point."

"TORICHA, Kenya — If there’s a ring around the sun, it will rain. If the gude bird sings in descending notes, the skies will open. If vultures gather, the showers will begin.

Everyone reads the signs, but they don’t mean what they used to. It’s still not raining.

Jala Barako is 85, a grandfather of eight and a member of an ancient nomadic tribe. Today, wearing a pinstriped jacket, dark glasses and turban-like hat, he looks like the proprietor of a progressive jazz club.

He sits outside a metal-walled shed that serves as the village store—the place where people come to buy provisions before heading out into this Martian-rocked landscape with their livestock to find pasture again. For generations, Barako explains, his people have slaughtered goats to read the weather forecast spelled out in their wet entrails. Now the readings are all off.

“The climate is changing,” he says, with a fatalistic laugh. “Even in the intestines.”"

Georgina Gustin reports for Inside Climate News in partnership with the Pulitzer Center with photography by Larry C. Price December 11, 2022. [2]