BURUNDI
NINGA WASHING STATION
Seated at 1,900 MASL and flanked by the Nkokoma River is Ninga Washing Station. After realizing that coffee farmers from this region were traveling far and wide to reach a washing station with fair scales and that paid a fair price for coffee cherries, Ninga was born.
Two rivers and a province border lie between Bukeye Washing Station and the hills of Ninga. The community is far beyond the reach of electricity. Even the glass bottles of coca-cola that usually find their way into tiny roadside shops are difficult to find on Ninga. Coffee trees occupy any space they can on this hill from the edge of the single track dirt paths that weave through the hills to the doorsteps of farmers’ self-made mud brick houses. With every violent conflict that has broken out in Burundi, Ninga farmers have scattered into the surrounding hills and forest areas with no established place of refuge to run to. During these times the coffee trees have gone into hibernation mode, waiting for their owners to return.
