Tag: living in Burundi

Before + Now: Emilienne

When she was just sixteen years old, a student named Emilienne fell in love and dropped out of school, choosing marriage over her schoolbooks. In 1993, just four years later, she tragically lost her young husband to the civil war ensuing the assassination of Burundi’s first democratically elected president. Emilienne was five months pregnant with their third child at the time.

“Family is very important to me. When I lost my husband, my mother and brothers helped me with everything.”

Burundi still has ways to go when it comes to the laws underpinning a woman’s right to inheriting, controlling and owning land. She put up an incredible fight when her in-laws tried to chase Emilienne and her two young girls out of her late husband’s home. With a loan from her mother and the support of her brothers, Emilienne was able to buy a piece of land and build a bigger home for her growing family.

“My favorite thing about being a mother is that when you have children, you are not alone.”

It was years later when she would meet Salvator, a widowed coffee farmer from a neighboring hill. Despite living apart from one another for several years, Emilienne and Salvator have since raised four children together. They still walk to see each other every day, and are waiting until their eldest children are married before moving in together.

The last time I had a photo of myself, I was seventeen years old. It was a picture taken by a priest, but stolen during the war. I will keep this photo in my house and always look at it.

I built this house alone. I am proud to have this big house because when I got married, we were living in a small house. My mother helped me by giving me a loan and I am still paying her back.

My son Irakoze’s chickens. He took this picture.

A poster in my brother’s house. It’s beautiful. Hanging in front is paper from notebooks that we cut to make decorations. My son learnt how to make them at school.

My brother’s son and daughter. Family is very important to me. During my single life, my brothers helped me so much.

“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.

June 14, 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
Land for Burundi Coffee

Following @kristyjcarlson on Twitter and Instagram gets me excited about being part of this family of four that has their hearts set on helping a community in rural Burundi produce amazing coffee. I’m so happy to be a part of it.

Building a coffee washing station in Burundi has meant taking on an obscenely huge amount of challenges and obstacles on the way to realizing the dream. Let’s just say accomplishing something like this in Burundi has few more challenges in it than building that lemonade stand in Wisconsin when I was six.

For months now we have set our sites on building this coffee washing station. Finding the perfect location was key to making it a success. After 3 years of sourcing and cupping Burundi coffee, I knew where we needed to be. The place we were looking for was sitting in the middle of a triangle of the best coffee washing stations producing the best coffee in all of Burundi. Besides the best coffee, it was a place where farmers are too far to carry their coffee to the nearest station forcing them to sell to local buyers at ridiculously low prices. It has one river, bringing plenty of fresh clean water to run the de-pulper. Sitting at the perfect altitude with a micro-climate that is unique and ideal for producing the kind of coffee that makes you (ok, maybe just me) go weak in the knees.

Three years to make certain of this specific spot. Months to get all the paperwork done and meet all the farmers to explain the vision. Weeks to get all the signatures of the owners of the land willing to sell and the neighboring farmers as witnesses. Then, on the last day before signing, we find out that two of the five farmers don’t feel like selling anymore.

What do we do? Tomorrow we go back to the land to talk to the farmers. The area co-op president and commune elder have talked through our vision and are coming with us to make sure that the farmers know the kind of impact this station will have on the lives of all 2,500 families in the four surrounding hills. If they still decide they don’t want to sell are we back to square one? No, the commune elder said that we can have the two hectors next to the spot we want that are owned by the commune. The rivers the same, the slope is great, and the view is stunning. He gets the vision. He has caught hope. He tells us that they will do whatever it takes to see us partner with them.

We have found our spot and started to put down our roots. This challenge is just one of many in our way, but if it was easy we wouldn’t need to do it, it would already be done. Am I Worried? No, but we are weeks away from starting to build on land that we still don’t own with money we still have not raised… It will all happen though, it will all happen.

Coffee Guy

February 26, 2013
To my little champion of French,

You just spent a year in a French speaking school… and your home language is English. Do you understand how amazing that is? I swore that I would never be THAT MOM that uses her kid as a walking Google Translate, but I am. Because, well… you know more French than me now and you sound so much better speaking it. Also, I make any excuse I can to hear you speak… it gives life to my soul every time. I am proud of you. We have been here exactly one year… and you know what? The thing I most admire about our journey as a family is YOU.

There have been many moments when I didn’t think we could do it, or I second guessed our decision… usually moments when you were screaming at me or stomping off in the opposite direction madder than a hornet. There was a fine line between the guilt I felt at “dumping you” off into another language and culture and the total resolution I had that we were GIVING YOU A GIFT. The language gift. Now, I can finally see the gift beginning to emerge. You speak almost as easily in one language as the other… I wish that were true of myself. We gave you no choice but to learn, while giving ourselves a much easier road. While we are taking classes (and I find them gob-smackingly hard) YOU have had an emersion of the kind no one in this family has known. Your absolute bravery throughout it astounds me. The headmaster of your school mentioned it, too. As she handed you your diploma, she paused and said (my rough translation)…

You are like a knight. A champion. At the beginning of the year you couldn’t speak a word of French, but now you can defend yourself like a champion.

To your average American parent that might sound like we have raised one big bully, but I tell you what… I was GUSHING with pride that day. And my boy, we still are.

Love,

mom

Hasselblad 501 C, Canon EOS-3, Portra 400, Fuji 400.

July 4, 2012
Underneath the coffee trees

I love it under the coffee trees. Don’t you? We’re off to the coffee hills again tomorrow. I’ll be photographing more of the harvest process and Coffee Guy will be talking with farmers and making sure the coffee cherries are being processed correctly .

I can’t wait. Being among the coffee trees re-connects me with the very reason we made such a dramatic move in the first place. My boys run free in their gum boots in the middle of Africa and my heart swells a bah-zillion times.

Love,

me

April 26, 2012
My open sore floor show

Do you know those weeks that seem like ten thousand weeks all rolled into one? The ones where you look back on Sunday and can’t believe ALL OF THAT LIFE fit into one week? I just finished one of those. When last week began I didn’t have a five year old, and then suddenly I did. A tantrum throwing, I hate you yelling, sweet talking, cuddly love of a five year old. I also had a terrible horrible embarrassing THING on my face. I noticed an innocent zit on my chin before going to bed one night, but while I slept it turned into a monster the likes of which I have never seen. When I woke up, it was an open sore that had a pulse all it’s own. The monster would not heal. It refused, despite strict orders to myself not to even touch the darn thing. For one whole solid week it would leak and weep and leak some more until… my lymph nodes were swollen to the size of jawbreakers. Then Saturday morning I woke up with tonsillitis too. The morning of Myles’ big birthday bash. Yeah, that’s right… I invited his WHOLE CLASS to our house plus other new friends, all so they had a front row seat at my open sore floor show.

Somehow I got through it. I told myself to suck it up because this day was not about me… but inside I wanted to run away and cry and not let a soul see me. Instead I faced them… mostly by avoiding mirrors. Thirty kids, their parents and Myles’ teacher. I know what you are thinking. You are thinking it probably was not nearly as bad as I am describing, because “that Kristy” is such a drama queen… I can be, it’s true, but I am not exaggerating about this other BEING I was carrying around on my face.

Early in the day it began to pour and our outdoor Star Wars party ended up inside. Just imagine thirty kids and their parents (and a few people without kids that I think are insanely brave for even setting foot in my house on that day) all inside. It was one big old Norwegian “Uff-Duh” and I woke up the next morning unable to swallow, with now golf ball sized lymph nodes and the friend on my face still naked as the day it was born. Ben called one of our great doctor friends from South Africa and asked him what to do. Then he zipped out like a hero and bought me some prescription antibiotics over the counter without a prescription for next to nothing. Ahh, I love Burundi. My open sore floor show is beginning to heal, but what a terrible awful no good tag along it has been.

I have to make one observation after all this. Clearly something is in the water here, above and beyond just Cholera, because we seem to be striking out in the keeping healthy department early into the game. Maybe we need to eat more apples… if we can find some.

Now I’m craving apples. Dang it!

September 19, 2011

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