Tea Zone

This Sunday I went up to visit the home of Mr. Gitonga, the mathematics teacher at school.  It is located in the tea growing zone, which is separated from the miraa growing zone – where Athiru is located.  The separation is mostly along contour lines as the tea requires a cooler climate. 

As we climbed up the hill behind his house on foot, I noticed how quiet and peaceful the area is.  There was still an occasional drunk, but even in the market place there were fewer young men loitering around than in the Athiru market.  As we climbed and began to see the patchwork of tea farms I started to realize that one difference is the population density.  The tea farms tend to be 1 to 3 acres, compared to the miraa farms, which tend to be 0.2 to 0.4 acres. 

With miraa, someone can survive on 0.4 acres, not well, but they can be able to afford simple food and illicit home-brewed alcohol.

Aside from the population though, the general behavior is different.  Later I was talking to another teacher who told me that around Athiru the primary school children work from 4-6am every day before school on miraa farms.  In that two hours they are able to earn around 100 Kenya shillings, which is the same amount that someone earns picking tea for an entire day.  This relative easy access to money in the miraa zones leads to a significantly higher dropout rate.  In fact, out of 200 students that start class 1, it is common for only 10 to finish class 8.

As we climbed higher, Mr. Gitonga told me about how the British had taken the land by force during colonization, but had required that Kenyans buy it back from them upon independence.  The Kenyans that purchased the land were the ones who had a little money, were business oriented, and had shares in the factories that processed the tea from white settlers’ farms.  The Kenyans that did not have the money to buy land or to pay the taxes that went along with selling tea settled in the lower areas such as Athiru.

As we reached the top of the hill, Mr. Gitonga pointed out the experimental fish ponds dotted into the corners of the tea farms.  Apparently a foreign government is giving Kenyans money to build fish ponds.  They have a sum of money allocated to each farmer, with included instructions and and materials list.  The farmers receive money to pay laborers, buy cement, and then get little fish to start the venture.  From the top of the hill, it is apparent that none of the ponds are lined with cement.  The imagination is the limit on where this money has gone.  From past experiences and from talking to more informed people the situation probably looks like this: the foreign body gives 100 thousand Kenyan shillings for the project.  This is a lot of money if you usually make 2 thousand KSh per month from tea.  An arrangement is worked out with the Kenyan authority on the ground.  20 000 is spent on labor to dig the hole and lay piping for water.  The rest of the money vanishes.

This is not particular to any particular region.  These stories are prolific.  My favorite is called the “Goldenberg Scandal.”  During Moi’s regime, they wanted to provide an incentive for individuals to export goods.  There was a man who allegedly imported gold from another country, and then exported it from Kenya, claiming the right to receive the government subsidy.  Eventually someone talked, and it came out that the gold never existed in the first place.  This man simply paid off the customs authorities to fill out claim form after claim form.  In total, he is estimated to have made billions of shillings off of the Kenyan government in this way.  No one ever kept track of the documents, and it is unknown exactly how much he made.  At the very least, he made enough to build the Grand-Regis hotel, which was estimated to be worth 7 billion shillings.

The real punch-line of the story is that the man responsible suddenly became a born-again Christian and is now a nationally renowned preacher with his own spot on national TV.

These thoughts accompanied me throughout the day, but regardless of the pessimism they created I was very joyous to be in the company of such a good teacher and good friend.