It is 4.45am in Makwatata, and the dawn is beginning to creep its way through the village. The window in my hut is so small that I can’t yet see that it is getting bright, but I know the new day has arrived because the dawn chorus has begun in earnest.

Birds twitter, cockerels crow, cows moo, goats bray and pigs grunt around the dusty ground searching for breakfast. A dog is barking, and somewhere close by, a baby is crying. There are a few rats squeaking around in the thatch of my roof, but I like to pretend they aren’t there.

Most if not all of Makwatata’s 76 households – consisting of 8 family members on average – rely on farming, and by 5.30am every man, woman and child is up and about preparing to go to the fields for a couple of hours before breakfast.

Some will walk 1.5km to their gardens, which are located beside a stream, to water their cabbages and tomatoes. Others take hoes to their cotton and maize fields, where they are ploughing away the remnants of last year’s crop and preparing the soil for new seed before the arrival of the rains at the end of this month.

Babies are strapped to their mothers’ backs and taken to the fields, and children often accompany their parents to help out for a few hours before going to school.

October is the hottest time of the year in Zambia, with midday temperatures reaching up to 40 degrees in this area. As the heat begins to rise at about 11am, the farmers begin to file back into the village to relax and have lunch.

The women, almost exclusively, are responsible for preparing food. Nsima, a thick porridge made from ground maize, forms the basis of every meal, and is served with a relish – most often stewed okra or rape leaves with groundnuts, tomatoes and lashings of salt.

After lunch, some farmers return to the fields, and I am told that during the rainy season and at harvest time, the villages would be empty in the afternoons. But the heat is stifling right now and there is not as much work to be done as there is at other times of the year, so many people remain in the village. The men sit around chatting, some drinking beer at the village bar on the main road, while the women bathe their babies, sweep out their houses and the surrounding communal areas, and prepare more nsima and relish for dinner.

By 6pm, darkness has fallen, and the village is black. My eyes are completely unadjusted to this darkness, but children are still running around playing, and friends gather to chat outside their houses as dinner is made. Few people use torches or candles until bedtime, so dinner is usually eaten in the dark.

At 7.30, the hum of voices has softened, and there is no sound to be heard past 8. Everyone is asleep, resting for the day ahead.