Tag: coffee farming

The challenge of water at Ninga Washing Station

In Burundi, a washing station (or wet mill) is a communal space. It doesn’t just belong to those who build, own or manage it, and it’s not just a place for coffee farmers to deliver their coffee cherries to. A washing station is a sign of development within a community; a landmark where neighbors can gather, use it as a meeting place, find jobs, and often collect water.

“Seeing a washing station gives us hope. Before there was nothing, no building – it was only a hill. Now, there’s a washing station and mzungus are buying coffee. We continue seeing change and new building, and it gives us hope that the future will be good for the community.”

– Lucien, a partner coffee farmer from Camizi hill.

There are so many things to take into consideration when building a washing station. Does the area have a reputation for growing coffee? Is there a need for it? Is there suitable land available? What impact will its existence have on the environment? Will it be profitable? More, but not most importantly, is there an available water source?

Coffee simply cannot exist without water. Not only is water important for the growth and development of a coffee seed and plant, it’s necessary for processing coffee. The quality steps of floating and rinsing coffee cherries to pulping, grading, fermenting, and soaking parchment coffee wouldn’t be possible without an abundance of water. Of course, the importance of water is another conversation when it comes to cupping and brewing coffee.

Getting clean water in large quantities to the Long Miles Washing Stations has been a challenge for us over the years. When Heza opened back in 2014, we were sourcing water from two catchment areas on Gitwe hill. We shared a water source with the communities living around the washing station, but struggled with frequently broken pipes causing an insufficient supply of water to flow to Heza. We tried everything from fixing the pipes to recycling the water before finding a new water source four kilometers away, and pumping water from there to the station.

Umuhini mushasha, utera amababa.

“A new handle leaves you with some pain in your hand.”

– Raphael Kayembe, Managing Director of Long Miles in Burundi.

This Kirundi phrase has stuck with us because it seems to aptly describe the blistering and bruising it took our team to get Ninga, our new washing station, fully operational in time for the season opener this year.

In 2019, after purchasing the land where Ninga Washing Station would eventually stand, we worked with consultants to dig a well and install a hand-pump to access clean water. With our water source in place, we turned our focus to the build out of the station. It was only when it came to installing and connecting our McKinnon depulper to the water pipes that we realized the well wasn’t deep enough to access clean groundwater at the quantity and quality that we needed. Although community members had been collecting water for washing clothes from the pump since the day it was installed, it wasn’t suitable for cooking or drinking, let alone processing coffee.

We tried adapting the initial drilling, installing a new pump, and making tweaks to improve the water’s quality. The original pump was supposed to produce 3m³ of clean water per hour but through the redevelopment we found that it was only producing 1m³ of unclean water per hour. At 40m deep, the pump was still getting blocked with mud. Even after disassembling and cleaning it, the water that flowed from the pump was littered with pebbles and sand.

With the coffee trees starting to ripen and farmers anxious about having to deliver their harvest elsewhere, we couldn’t delay the opening of Ninga any longer. Without a fully operational washing station at this point, we made the call to start collecting coffee cherries from partner farmers and processed our first sun-dried Natural micro-lots of the season.

Behind the scenes, we continued exploring every alternative water source in the areas surrounding Ninga Washing Station for over a month. The sources that we could find were too far away to connect to (some fifteen kilometres from the washing station), had a low outflow of water or were already at capacity. After a lot of consideration, we bit the bullet and contracted a new consultant to perform a new drilling. It was our last hope.

Following a week of drilling, we found that clean groundwater was flowing at 65m deep. Without really realizing it, the doubt that we could get this fixed in time had been niggling away in our mind and we had been holding our breath for weeks. It was the sight of clean, flowing water that finally allowed the team to collectively let out a sigh of relief. With the hardest part behind us, we were fortunate enough to find all the additional parts in the country: the drill, electric pump, and pipes.

Not only have we been able to produce Fully Washed and Naturally processed coffees at Ninga Washing Station this season, but the tap has been opened to the neighboring communities once again for water collection. We’re especially excited about the anaerobically fermented micro-lots that we’ve processed using our new Jack Bins. Despite the challenge of water this harvest season, the quality of our Ninga coffees is looking like our best year yet!

Have you got questions about our current (2021) crop of Burundi coffee? Please get in touch with David Stallings, head of Roaster and Importer Relations at Long Miles Coffee.

July 9, 2021
Before + Now: Apollinaire

Apollinaire has grown coffee for more than four decades but rarely had the chance to taste it.

“I only drink coffee when they give it to us at the washing station. Coffee is sweet. I like it more than tea.”

Like many other coffee-farming parents in Burundi, Apollinaire has gone to great lengths teaching his children how to grow and care for coffee. “Children don’t want to grow coffee because they know that their parents have already planted it. They’ll wait until we are no longer around to farm our coffee”, he sighs. “In general, young people are lazy and don’t enjoy farming that much. They are different from older people.”

As the head of three coffee farming associations and an active member of other community-based projects, Apollinaire is also a leader in his community. “It was the first time that I’d heard of farmers having cameras and taking photos,” he says, “but I know that when I show people the photos that I took, it will bring them much joy and happiness.”

At my brother’s house. I took this because I knew I would be getting it back. The last time I had a photo of myself was when I got my identity card in 2005.

A coffee plantation. The cherries were red and ripe. Athanase, my friend, is on the bicycle. He was borrowing it so that he could deliver his coffee to the washing station.

My cow. It’s very important to me. It gives me fertilizer and it will give birth soon. I’m happy because then I will have milk to sell and give to my grandchildren.

These are small zucchinis that I planted in my coffee plantation. We eat the root and the leaves, but they also protect the soil.

My big tea plantation that has been stolen by my cousin. We went to court and I won the case, but my cousin’s workers are still picking tea in the plantation. This is something that hurts me, but I hope in the future I will have it back again.

This is where we sell our tea and it gets put in the truck. I drink it, but coffee is sweeter, and I like it more than tea.

“Before + Now” is dedicated to bringing the voices of marginalized coffee farmers into the field of everyday coffee consumers. It includes a series of photographs made by coffee farmers in Burundi, East Africa as well as a large-format portrait of each farmer. This series makes it possible not only to see life in East Africa and the coffee process, but also to connect clearly with the dreams, fears, and hopes of coffee farmers. Read more about “Before + Now” here.

June 14, 2021
The roads to coffee production at Long Miles Coffee

Every coffee that is picked and processed needs a home, which is why coffee production takes different roads within our company.

Raised drying beds at Bukeye Washing Station in Burundi

The first road, modeled in Burundi, includes washing station ownership. In Burundi, we work with 5,500 smallholding farmers- who each grow less than a bag of coffee per annum- to produce and bring to market the coffee they grow. To accomplish this, we own three washing stations and work with farmers on eleven unique hills. Another crucial part of this model is farming. We own coffee farms that stand alongside our smallholding farmers. These farms act as model farms for the surrounding communities as well as give us a chance to experiment with and control some of the variables in growing coffee.

Haron Wachira and Ben Carlson hand-sorting coffee at Thunguri Washing Station in Kenya

The second road coffee production takes within our company is partnership. In Kenya for example, we are partnering with Haron Wachira to rehabilitate and refurbish the Wachira family’s dormant coffee factory and farm located on Mount Kenya, in Kirinyaga County. In our first season, we worked directly with thirty coffee farming families who live in the community. While the Wachira Group is not solely focused on coffee, we share the same vision of working with small-scale coffee farmers to improve their production, access to markets, and the price paid for their coffee.

Raised drying beds at Heza Washing Station in Burundi

We can’t control how much coffee is produced in a season, which is why the third road that coffee production takes at Long Miles is sourcing from partnering coffee producers. Our intention is always to produce our own coffee, but some years we will also share coffees from local partnering coffee producers that have stood out to us on the cupping table. Partnering with these coffees enables us to continue year-round projects and programs that have become essential to who we are, whether that is our team of Long Miles Coffee Scouts, our Trees For Kibira reforestation project, or running Farmer Field Schools– to name a few.

No matter which of these roads we take, our end goal is the same: producing excellent coffees, uplifting the smallholding farmers who grow them, and meeting you, our roasting partners, where you’re at. You might already know this or be familiar with these names, but these are the coffees that our company produces:

Long Miles Micro-lots

To us, micro-lots are coffees that have been carefully curated based on two primary factors: traceable down to a distinct geographical locale where the coffee was grown, and a cup score of 86+ designated by our team. Each delivery of coffee cherry that we receive from our partner farmers at one of our washing stations is sorted and processed differently, depending on the country of origin.

Kibira Micro-lots

Kibira micro-lots are coffees that have been processed by coffee producers surrounding our Long Miles Washing Stations. Our cupping lab and quality control team cups through many dozens of lots in order to find the best coffees to partner with. We source these 86+ scoring coffees knowing that at every step of the way they have been processed according to the Long Miles Coffee standard. Partnering with these coffees enables us to continue programs that have become essential to who we are, namely the Long Miles Coffee Scouts and Trees For Kibira.

Kibira

Kibira lots represent coffees that have been sourced from partnering coffee producers. These coffees, ranging in quality and price, are tailored to your needs based on pre-harvest conversations and are typically contracted in larger quantities.

Hills

Our priority is to produce coffee that is of micro-lot quality, yet some of the coffees that we process fall slightly below the 86 mark designated by our team. Coffees that score between 84-85 points, are blended together and are traceable by washing station and called “Hills.”

If you have any questions about our coffee, please get in touch!

May 25, 2021
Before + Now: Dorothy

“We know that people who buy the coffee are interested to know where it comes from.”

With her loveable personality and seemingly endless wisdom, Dorothy is an anchor in her community. At forty-three years old, she’s no stranger to farming coffee. Her family has been growing it since the 1970s. Farming coffee isn’t difficult, she says, but it takes diligence and hard work.

“Coffee is like raising a child. You have to wash them, nurture them, and look after them.”

The happiest moment in Dorothy’s life was when she learned that she was pregnant. Having been told by doctors that she wouldn’t be able to conceive, falling pregnant with her first daughter (and the five children that followed) was a tremendous source of joy.

Dorothy tries to include her children in the farming process as much as she can, passing on what she’s learned from her grandmother. Growing up, Dorothy’s mom gave her to her grandmother to be raised because she had little means to do so by herself.

“My grandmother became the person who taught me about life and the way to live. She taught me everything I know.”

When she goes out to work on their family’s fields, her youngest daughter tends to follow. She’s recently been teaching her children about the effects of soil erosion, and what they can do to protect the soil. Together, they are planting vegetables around their home and in the small plot of land behind their house to prevent the soil from eroding in the future.

“What is most important though is to lead by example. If I pick up a hoe, they’ll follow and also pick up a hoe.”

Dorothy’s hope for her children is that they finish school but continue to farm, because to her, farming is life.

“The legacy that I would like to leave is to plant coffee trees, so that my children can look at them in the future and say, ‘My mom planted these’.”

“I want to teach them that those coffee trees are not permanent; that they must change them when they get old, so that their children will see them in the future.”

“I was taking photos, hour by hour, of my everyday activities. When you wake up, you wash your face and brush your teeth.”

“I was going to plant yams.”

“An association has helped farmers to keep bees. I was bored staying home, only doing housework. So, I thought let me go out and work with others. As a woman, if you just do housework people think you are not a very important person. I haven’t got a lot of honey…yet.”

“I gave my children each a chicken and one rooster to share. I gave each of my blessings a blessing. Now we will see who gets more chickens. It’s like a test of the blessings. I have to teach them how to have a small business. We don’t know. If school doesn’t go well, the children can start with an idea of what they can do in the future.”

“We were ready to go to church.”

“I took this because of climate change. There is a disease affecting the coffee trees. The coffee cherries are not nice. Some have not ripened, others have dried out. I threw this coffee away.”

“Before + Now” is dedicated to bringing the voices of marginalized coffee farmers into the field of vision of everyday coffee consumers. It includes a series of photographs made by coffee farmers in Burundi, East Africa as well as a large-format portrait of each farmer. This series makes it possible not only to see life in East Africa and the coffee process; but also to connect clearly with the dreams, fears, and hopes of coffee farmers. Read more about “Before + Now” here.

April 29, 2021
Before + Now: Salvator
“I liked seeing other people’s photos and hearing their opinions. Doing that, getting closer as a community, helps us to grow.”

Salvator is a forty-two year old coffee farmer from Gaharo hill in Burundi. He comes from a big family, and is a father to four young children- all of whom he dotes on. “Family is so important to me, especially children. Without them, you cannot be happy.”

During the week, Salvator is not just focused on farming. He is also a member of a Village Savings and Loan Association, the Red Cross, and a traditional brick-making association. It’s not uncommon for people to travel all the way from Bujumbura, the country’s capital city, to the northern province of Muramvya¹ to buy the bricks that are made in this region.

“One of the association’s laws is ‘ubuntu’ or humanity. It is important for me to have ubuntu where I live, in my community.”

To have “Ubuntu” is to respect, love and help each other so that we can grow together. ⁠In Kirundi (the local language spoken in Burundi) “Ubuntu” refers to the grace and humanity of each person that can be shown to other people. It is a complex term that comes from the Bantu languages mostly spoken in Sub-Saharan Africa. It has many interpretations and definitions, but is commonly translated as, “I am because we are.”

“My mom is on the right with my sister who was carrying a baby. They were preparing traditional banana wine that we were going to give as a gift to a relative who was having a party. This is important to me, because no one can manage to prepare a party alone without the help of family, neighbors, and friends. We also used to prepare the wine to drink at home but now there is a disease that attacks the bananas, turning the plant’s leaves yellow. When one banana is attacked, all the trees in the plantation are infected. I had 23 bananas trees but now I have only 5. This disease has particularly affected Munyinya² hill where you can only see a desert where there were once bananas plantations…”

“A salon that belongs to my brother-in-law. He promised to teach me how to style hair.”

“Our Village Savings and Loan Association of twenty members from the neighborhood. We meet twice a month, and everyone contributes the money he/she has. We use this money to give loans to the members and they reimburse with interest. After one year everyone receives the amount they contributed, and we share the interests from loans.”

“I am a member of an association called Dufyature turwanye nyakatsi (Kirundi: “Let’s make bricks and fight against houses made entirely of straw”). We make bricks to sell. This man was finalizing our kiln so that we could fire the bricks. After the sale, we keep the capital in the association’s fund, share the profits, and pay communal tax. We manufacture these bricks ourselves without outside labor and we sell them twice a year.”

“The man had just helped this woman putting the bricks down and she was happy because they were heavy and difficult to carry. The people who do this job have to climb over a mountain to carry the bricks from where they are made to the main road. It’s hard work that is done by poor people who don’t have another choice.”

Footnotes
1. Muramvya is a province in the central part of the country, and also Salvator’s home province.
2. Munyinya hill is a distinct geo-political region in the Muramvya Province.
“Before + Now” is dedicated to bringing the voices of marginalized coffee farmers into the field of vision of everyday coffee consumers. It includes a series of photographs made by coffee farmers in Burundi, East Africa as well as a large-format portrait of each farmer. This series makes it possible not only to see life in East Africa and the coffee process; but also to connect clearly with the dreams, fears, and hopes of coffee farmers. Read more about “Before + Now” here.
April 29, 2021
Before + Now: Mama Claude

“You should never expect something from someone, but we can grow together. Every time I see my friends, we have the same greeting, “Mugenzi, ntuzerinze.”

My friend, don’t expect something.”

Concilie took on the moniker Mama Claude after the birth of her eldest son, Claude. In Burundi (as in many African countries), it’s tradition that a mother takes on the name of her firstborn child. Her wonderful sense of humor, poise, and humility seem to know no bounds.

Mama Claude’s modest brick home, with its teal-blue door and walkway lined with banana trees, is built close to the dirt road that runs through Gahaga hill in Burundi. She lives here with a brood of children and grandchildren- not all hers. If you ever pass by her house, it’s rare to find her there. She’s most likely out working in a field somewhere, whether it’s her own plot of land or helping a friend. As an active member of a Women’s Village Savings and Loan Association, and the Red Cross Association, she’s always busy with something.

Most mornings, she’s up before the sun, cooking breakfast for her family and small team of laborers before heading out the door for the day, a thermos of hot tea in hand.

Mama Claude started farming in 1970, when she was just sixteen years old. She doesn’t just farm coffee; she’s also a tea farmer, and grows an assortment of subsistence crops to sell and feed her family. To her, growing coffee is the means to nourishing her family. Over the years, she’s divided up 600 coffee trees between her eleven grown children, leaving her now with just sixty to look after.

“When I was younger, I was stronger and could farm more quickly.”

At age sixty-six, she now finds it more difficult to farm. The changing climate has brought about significant challenges to coffee farmers in Burundi: prolonged drought, delayed rains and at times not enough rain. The soil, she says, is not as fertile as it used to be and erosion occurs more frequently. Before, people in her community used to plant without using fertilizer and could expect high yields. Now, it’s difficult to grow crops without animals or fertilizer because the soil has become too acidic.

“It’s sad to see someone farming who doesn’t get production. We have to work together to improve our production, our well-being and the well-being of those who buy our crops.”

“I was in my kitchen cooking dinner. I was going to cook taro¹ on firewood and had just lit a lamp that I bought on credit. Sometimes my children help me to cook but this is my job.”

“This is Melanie. We are in an association called Twungurane ubumenyi which means “Improving our skills together”. We’ve been taught how to build a kitchen garden. I took this picture because she has a nice kitchen garden with many kinds of vegetables. You cannot be a member of this association without having a kitchen garden.”

“An employee who was painting our new house with red-colored cement. Even if building a house requires a lot of money, it provides good health and honor in the community. As the house has many rooms, we will be hosting guests. We will give our old house to our young children who are still studying, and we hope that they will transform it.”

“A man who was looking for clay. In one ditch, you can find different kinds of clay. At the top, there is a black clay and after digging deeply, you can find gray clay that can make good quality and expensive bricks.”

“I took this picture of the tiles to show development. When you use them, it is like taking a step forward. Making tiles requires a special clay that you cannot find everywhere. Tiles are less expensive than metal sheets and last for many years.”

Footnotes

1. Taro is a white-fleshed root vegetable that has a mildly sweet taste and a texture like potato. It is widely grown and eaten in Burundi.

“Before + Now” is dedicated to bringing the voices of marginalized coffee farmers into the field of vision of everyday coffee consumers. It includes a series of photographs made by coffee farmers in Burundi, East Africa as well as a large-format portrait of each farmer. This series makes it possible not only to see life in East Africa and the coffee process; but also to connect clearly with the dreams, fears, and hopes of coffee farmers. Read more about “Before + Now” here.

April 29, 2021
Before + Now: Gervais
Gervais is a seventy-nine year old coffee farmer from the small, coffee-producing nation of Burundi, East Africa. He started farming coffee in 1960, when Burundi was just two years shy of gaining its independence from Belgian rule. As the oldest person in his community, he has dubbed himself as the “grandfather of Gaharo hill”; the area where he lives and grows his coffee. That, and the fact that his grandchildren seem to follow him wherever he goes.

“My house is close to the road. Children in the community often pass by my home to visit. I am also the oldest person in my community. I am like the grandfather of Gaharo hill.”

Growing up, his father- a traditional beekeeper- taught him how to build a beehive from the wood of the umwungo tree (more commonly known as polyscias fulva, an evergreen indigenous to Burundi). Even though he never became a beekeeper himself, Gervais still grows these trees to sell the wood.

If you ask him, Gervais will tell you that his coffee farm is a source of pride and joy. He used to have just under 300 Heirloom Bourbon coffee trees planted on the same plot of land that his house stands on, but as he’s gotten older, he’s started giving them away to his children. As an avid member of Farmer Field School, Gervais’ coffee farm is a model that other farmers in the community can visit to learn best farming practices from him.

“The governor of Muramvya¹ once visited my plantation during a local spraying campaign because it is so nice.”

Over the years, he has planted banana palms, bamboo, and avocado trees alongside his coffee to diversify his farm and protect the soil. At one point, he even started a red wiggler worm farm. More recently, Gervais has started producing organic fertilizer for his coffee trees by composting banana stalks and leaves with ash leftover from cooking.

When we asked Gervais what he’ll do with the photos he took, he replied,

“I am going to show my children the photos I took. I want them to remember that I worked in coffee.”

“This is my grandchild. He always comes with me to my plantation. He follows me, wherever I go. He knows that coffee is important. He knows that if we have coffee, we have rice.”

“I was pruning my trees. I always wear my suit. When I was young, I had many suits. Now, I only have this one.”

“My daughter. She was watering the vegetables outside our house.”

“The women who were sorting coffee at the washing station. I love this washing station. It’s encouraging to see women working in coffee, looking after plantations and earning money.”

Footnotes
1. Muramvya is a province in the central part of the country, and also Gervais’ home province.
“Before + Now” is dedicated to bringing the voices of marginalized coffee farmers into the field of vision of everyday coffee consumers. It includes a series of photographs made by coffee farmers in Burundi, East Africa as well as a large-format portrait of each farmer. This series makes it possible not only to see life in East Africa and the coffee process; but also to connect clearly with the dreams, fears, and hopes of coffee farmers. Read more about “Before + Now” here.
April 29, 2021
Reflections of Kenya: founder’s thoughts from Kericho.

written by Kristy Carlson, co-founder and Story Director of Long Miles Coffee.

As my children’s feet hit the earth in Kenya this past December, their whole beings shifted into a truer version of themselves. The joke was up. The mirage of who I had seen them be for two years in the US dropped away. First buds of spring in human form, they unfurled to embrace it all in real time. Their bodies collectively took the deepest breath that they had taken in two years. I may have been doing the same- it was good to be back.

People often ask me how our trip to Kenya went. That in itself feels odd. I’m so used to correcting the vernacular of the word trip with the response of, “It wasn’t a trip- we actually live there.” But we don’t live in East Africa anymore. We really don’t. It’s still a strange fact.

Elizabeth from Kericho in Western Kenya.

So why Kenya? Why now…. during a global pandemic? Isn’t producing coffee in Burundi enough? Like many things within our company, it came down to relationship.

Ben met Haron at a coffee conference in early 2017. Haron was a keynote speaker sharing about his work with the organization he had started, Akili Group. His desire to positively impact his Kenyan family and neighbors through agriculture caught Ben’s attention and lead to back-and-forth discussions over the following years.

Haron and Margaret Wachira

Years ago, Haron’s uncle had started Thunguri Coffee Factory, near Mount Kenya. It began as a small coffee factory dedicated to Haron’s family and a few neighboring farmers, but for the last two decades the coffee factory has sat idle as aging equipment and leaders could not maintain its profitability. Haron’s passion to revitalize the coffee factory and find new in-roads to improve not only the coffee but his neighbors’ livelihoods felt like a partnership meant for us.

There are the things we did to make the season go around. Tile fermentation tanks. Check. Replace McKinnon. Check. Build new drying beds. Check. Send Jimmy in for quality control. Check. Bring Joy over to help collect farmer stories. Check. Send Raphael in to build relationships. Check. But the real privilege of partnership was having lunch at Grandma Margaret’s house. Margaret is Haron’s wife and by all accounts, especially by our eleven-year-old Neo’s, she makes the best chapati and mandazi in the land. Lunch at her house is a privilege. Leave your shoes at the door and be prepared to be treated like family and a treasured guest all at once.

The larger vision for Long Miles Kenya is not only to work with Haron and his family, but also to have a farm in Western Kenya. This farm has been a dream for many years and we’ve already met many challenges while trying to bring it to fruition. Anxiety. Sleeplessness. Sometimes they won’t leave us even though we’ve left Africa. One thing we learned while beginning Long Miles in Burundi is that most things in life worth doing are held in paradox. Pain and gratitude cycling in tandem. Hardship and joy weaving together. You can watch some of Ben’s musings in his search for land for the farm in Kenya here on our Instagram feed.

Small steps. This is how change happens. Can change be found in the dramatic upheaval or the unexpected right turn? Absolutely. But, more often than not, it is nuanced and shadowed. Change is the vein pulsing and moving through a larger thing. It is waking up and realizing that your newborn baby boy can legally drive a car. It is pushing the flywheel for what seems like a lifetime before it finally ticks over and dreams become reality. Days. They don’t seem like much, especially in a pandemic where they bleed like a monochromatic watercolor into one. The sun rises, then it sets. Sometimes we crave the sunset. The darkness. The doneness. Days aren’t always the focus of our bigger life “goals” but they are the smallness that keeps us all alive. We need the smallness. Small steps. Small daily choices that build a lifetime. Days are the little “yeses” to the future that we barely whisper out loud. With them we can collectively feel a wind under our sails. Change is coming. Hope is near. Long Miles Kenya… is near.

March 15, 2021
Celebrating women farming coffee on Gikungere hill in Burundi.

There are women farming coffee on Gikungere hill who are tearing down the walls that were once built up around them.

“GROWING UP, WE WERE TOLD THAT EVERY BOY MUST ONE DAY HAVE A PIECE OF LAND TO PLANT COFFEE FOR HIS FUTURE FAMILY. BUT NOT US GIRLS. WE WOULD SOON BE MARRIED, A PART OF ANOTHER FAMILY.”

It was around noon when we met with the members of Dushigikirigiterwa C’ikawa (translated from Kirundi as “Let’s support the coffee crop”) women’s association. If they hadn’t been spending their afternoon with us, then they would have been out working in their families’ fields.

There are a couple of planting seasons in Burundi, each one aligning with the wet months. February and March mark the start of the country’s second planting season. Every day during these months you’ll find most farmers weeding, mulching, and preparing the soil to plant potatoes, climbing peas, and string beans.

We sat together, sharing thoughts on what it means to be a woman in coffee. We heard women speak their own truths on the value that they bring to their families; the value that they bring to each of their communities. We also talked about the change that they still want to see for women on Gikungere hill.

“If you compare now to the time when we were growing up, so many things have changed for us. Girls are going to school. There are women in government. A woman can now talk freely in meetings where men are present. There are not many separations of tasks. Before, building a house was considered to be ‘a man’s job’. Now, a woman can help her husband to build their family’s house. She can build a fence. We both have hands. We can both do the work. Our skills only improve by working together.”

But in coffee they say they still want to see change.

“WE’RE STILL TREATED LIKE CHILDREN. WE DON’T GET A SAY IN HOW THE MONEY WE EARN FROM COFFEE IS SPENT. WE WANT TO BE RECOGNIZED AS ADULTS; AS COFFEE PRODUCERS.”

Together these incredible women are learning how to support each other and earn money on their own terms, in their own way. They’re currently saving money to buy a piece of land together, with the hope of planting coffee trees. With this money, they say, comes freedom. The ability to contribute towards their families instead of always asking their husbands for money.

“WE USED TO HEAR ABOUT WOMEN’S DAY ON THE RADIO, BUT DIDN’T KNOW WHY WE WERE CELEBRATING IT. NOW, WE’RE CELEBRATING WHAT WOMEN HAVE ACCOMPLISHED.”

Long Miles Coffee Scout Leader, Asterie, picking coffee cherries alongside coffee farmer Marceline.

Sitting among these women was a powerful reminder of what a united community looks like. With the build of Ninga Washing Station happening so close to Gikungere hill, we’re looking forward to having more conversations like this one.

“The change we want to see has to come from each of us. We need to be the example for other hills. We’re going to make change for other women who don’t know that they can.”

March 8, 2021

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