By family tradition, Evelina Zacarias had stored some of the maize kernels from her harvest in the barn to use them as seed for the next farming season in 2023, but climate change, which has caused drought in her village, has called this practice into question.
“We always kept the kernels that looked healthier. It’s a tradition that goes back to my grandparents, but as the rainy season waned, the seeds sprouted and withered immediately due to the sun at this stage, and so we lost most of the production, with one ear or the other surviving” in the field, which was then harvested and stored for planting, she explains.
The former guerrilla of the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo) was reintegrated after her recent demobilisation in the village of Zivale, a locality in the interior of Muda Serração, in the district of Gondola, in the province of Manica, where, in addition to her family, she cultivates to support herself. 
She joined a farmers’ association as part of the disarmament, demobilisation and social reintegration (DDR) process and received certified seed for the first time thanks to a DELPAZ support line.
“We received the certified seeds and I planted them in the field for the first time. Wary, I set aside a plot where I sowed traditional seeds, but everything that sprouted died because of the sun. All the food I have today comes from certified seed,” she explained.
“The certified seeds have greatly improved my income from field production. I had no idea that the drought was caused by climate change and that we had to react with new farming techniques and improved seeds that DELPAZ technicians are teaching us,” she remarks, as she rearranges the bundles of hay that will cover a new barn.
Evelina Zacarias, 50, reintegrated in Zivale, fought for the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo) guerrillas for 18 years, serving as a carer for the historical leader’s children and then as Afonso Dhlakama’s cook, and has been demobilised twice, most recently in June 2020.
Evelina was recruited into guerrilla warfare at the age of seven in 1981, during the 16-year civil war, and was demobilised a first time in 1994 by the UN peacekeeping mission in Mozambique (Onumoz). After 18 years of civilian life, she rejoined the guerrillas to ‘fight for democracy’ in 2012, when Afonso Dhlakama summoned and regrouped former guerrillas in the Gorongosa mountain range in Sofala.
“I was recruited with my father in Mpunga and from there with General Ossufo (Momade) we left for Gorongosa, then for a base in Maringue and then for Massala,” a journey that took months on foot, the woman recounts, pointing out that it was in Massala that she was first demobilised.
Now the mother of eight children, all born during the intervals of the conflicts, she initially received military training for combat but was then assigned to look after the children of President Afonso Dhlakama, who later also served as cook.
“There were houses where the leader’s wives and children were and we looked after them. We washed their clothes in the rivers and cooked for them until the end of the war. President Dhlakama always came there where the wives and children were and assured us that one day the war would end, and this went on until we were demobilised for the first time in 1992,” she says with an enviable energy in her gestures.
The former guerrilla recalls that on her first demobilisation she returned to her home village of Búzi with a machete, an axe, a hoe and a bank cheque, which she never cashed because it burnt down in the hut where she lived during a fire.
She was demobilised again as part of the Demobilisation, Disarmament and Reintegration (DDR) process – which stems from the peace agreement signed in 2019 – and is now devoting her life to her family and farming.
“We are learning to overcome the drought with new production methods and this will improve our income, so we can take care of our family,” says Evelina, her usual discreet smile highlighting the dark features that cross her face.
She hopes to one day mechanise farming and abandon the hoe he uses to cultivate his two hectares of land, dedicated exclusively to growing maize and sesame.
The ex-guerrillas are among the thousands of beneficiaries of the DELPAZ Programme, which ensures the economic and social reintegration of all ex-combatants, their families and rural communities affected by the conflict, in order to achieve lasting peace in Mozambique.