January 7, 2016 could hardly have been worse in this thunderously beautiful, water-parched, and economically reeling nation of 55 million residents at the bottom of Africa.

The South African rand slid in value to its lowest level ever and is now worth barely more than 6 U.S. cents. The business confidence index fell to its worst-ever rating. National meteorologists projected that a deep drought, already a year old, would persist until the end of 2016. Agronomists said that grain harvests were likely to be half the normal total. Layoffs in the farm sector caused by moisture scarcity and unplanted fields lifted the country’s persistent joblessness to more than 35 percent. Thermometers in Pretoria, the nation’s capital, reached a sun-blistered peak of 41.5 degrees Celsius (107 degrees Fahrenheit) the highest ever recorded.

The endowment of optimism and progress that South Africans embraced at the start of the new multi-racial elections and the formal end of Apartheid in 1994 has dissolved into a period of deepening national economic and social stress. Talk radio hosts reached a candid national consensus that the first Thursday of the new year was among the worst days in the 22-year post-Apartheid era. On one news station, hosts interviewed a psychic, who counseled listeners to stay calm.

Circle of Blue is in South Africa for seven weeks at the start of 2016 for our first on-the-ground project in Africa. “Choke Point: South Africa” is the next chapter in our global reporting to understand how nations are responding to the 21st-century environmental shape-shifting that is changing patterns of rainfall and snowmelt, affecting supplies of water, energy, and food, and bullying economies on every continent.

Continue reading on Circle of Blue.