It has been a while since we have written. Last time, you may remember reading about a couple interviews we did in a place called Rwesero. Henk’s original research plan was to conduct around 50 interviews. In the last 8 or 9 weeks, Henk has been working hard to reach that number. Despite all sorts of distractions and things to deal with, he has been able to advance well and has now reached the end of his field work.
Since it is impossible to describe every interview, interesting observation or exciting discovery, we will try lead you through a typical day of interviews, highlighting some aspects that caught our attention. This blog is written from Henk's point of view.
On a typical work day, I will get up around 7 am, have a breakfast of porridge, and head off to the office at 8 where my taxi is waiting for us. The night before, my colleague Frenarie helped me call a couple of farmers and make appointments to meet up for the following day. Though the average farmer in Burundi doesn’t live on a tight daily schedule like most people in the West, it is still good to inform them ahead of time. February and early March is the time of sowing for the second growing season, so most people are quite busy and it is sometimes hard to find them at home. For today, we have been able to find two farmers in a “colline” called Rwesamenyo willing to work with me.
Photos of the Interviews and PIP
The first farmer is called Martin. I start the interview by asking him what he has learned in the training provided by the project, giving him the chance to describe the things that jump out to him most. After that, I will zoom in on all the different aspects of what they (should have) learned: how to make a future plan, inventorying their family’s resources and weaknesses, working together in associations, and understanding the concept of ‘integrated farm management”.
One important aspect of the “PIP” training is to involve the whole family in planning for the future of the farm. For some this is harder than others. Burundian society is a patriarchal society, and traditionally the man has the final word over all decisions. In Martin’s case, he has had a hard time letting go of this cultural notion, and he tells me proudly that he made the plan and the drawings all by himself. Are his wife and children involved? Oh yes, they work very hard to dig the trenches and weed the crops that Martin thought up. At this point in the interview, Allie has already pointed out to me the unhappy demeanor of the women and children sitting at a distance observing the interview process and we wonder how they would answer the interview questions.
On the other end of the spectrum, many female farmers that I interview have a husband who is hardly involved because he is off working in the capital city most of the year or spends his days at the bar. Although it is hard to get a good grasp of a family’s situation from one 3-hour interview, Allie and I have been fascinated to discover a little bit about the current state of gender issues in rural Burundi. It seems that in the villages where Fanning the Spark is located, things are changing at least slowly, and women are gaining more and more courage to speak up and become involved in family decision-making. This may have been helped along by awareness-raising through other projects. There are a number of women, like Leocadie (see our last blog post) who are making themselves heard in general meetings and are taking a leadership role in their community. Over half of the farmers trained in "Fanning the Spark" are women, and many indicate that they are in full cooperation with their husbands in the project.
The next step in Martin’s interview is to visit his fields and see what he has done since entering the project. This is an important step because a farmer may claim to have done a lot of work, without having done it correctly. During the visit, I ask questions to gauge their awareness of land degradation and their efforts to fight it. Martin shows me some erosion gullies which are threatening his plot borders. He is lucky to have some old contour lines (grass strips which form into sort of terraces) which were installed by the government a number of years ago.
An example of a recently dug contour line
This project aimed to protect the whole “colline” against erosion, but it was not accompanied by sensitization, so many of the farmers in the colline proceeded to destroy the contour lines after they were installed wit6h help from outside. This reminds me of the importance of Fanning the Spark’s integrated approach, which make erosion protection measures necessary in a larger framework which aims to develop the family holistically. In Martin’s case, he has now understood the necessity to maintain and extend his contour lines. He would have started this work last year, but the marriage of his son required him to spend all his money which would have been used for the work.
Martin’s interview brought up some interesting aspects of what motivates the farmers in my research area. I am curious to see what similarities and differences there may exist between him and the farmer he trained, Damien, where I am headed next.
Photos from days of fieldwork
The next farmer on my schedule for today is Damien. He lives a 15 minute walk up the hillside away from Martin, his house nestled next to a rocky mountain. What I immediately notice about Damien is his large, swollen feet with blistering sores around the edges. I find out during the interview that he has wrestled this problem for most of his life. It has prevented him from attending school, and probably was the reason that he never married or had a family. He is living with his sister, who is a nun at a local Catholic parish.
During my past interviews, I have found farmers giving a wide range of weaknesses and barriers against carrying out their future plans. Most commonly, they mention lack of money, although the more perceptive farmers can break this down further: lack of manure to fertilize their fields, lack of good seeds to plant or products to treat crop diseases. Some mention health, especially eye problems. Another common problem is theft. We have come across some extreme cases where a farmer’s cow was poisoned by another farmer out of sheer jealousy for having something that he doesn't have. In other cases, unknown ‘ill-doers’ go into the field at night and dig up people’s potatoes or cut banana bunches before they could be harvested, or steal a bag of freshly harvested beans from someone’s house. It is hard for me to imagine, but this can warrant people paying a sentinel to guard their crops at night. On the other hand, when I tell Burundian farmers that we also have thieves in our countries that break into houses and steal things, they can hardly imagine it – surely everyone in Holland or America has so much money, that stealing is totally unnecessary!
One problem mentioned by almost every farmer is that of “climate change”. Although it is sometimes tricky to know what exactly they mean by this concept, one thing is certain: climatic problems pose a huge threat to Burundian farmers, and this has been getting worse over the past 10-20 years. The issues are always the same: torrential rains washing away crops and soil, violent winds knocking over maize and banana plants, hailstorms destroying pretty much any crop, and prolonged drought. Previously, rains would start in September and last (with a brief interpose in January) till June; now the rains sometimes don’t start till November, and drought commonly sets in from April. Most of these problems are hard to deal with. For torrential rainstorms, the main thing is to protect the soil from erosion by installing contour lines, as taught in the project. However, the rains are now falling so heavily that these measures often break through. For drought, farmers are having to adjust their sowing dates and hope that at least part of the crop will survive. If not, there is always a small yield of sweet potato and manioc (a root also called cassava) that survives the drought, but this is no more than hanging on to survival.
“...stones the size of marbles are falling so thick you can’t see more than a few meters outside...
...Damien’s cabbage nursery, carefully planted with seedlings just poking through the ground, is all but destroyed.”
It is hard to imagine how hail can be such a problem when you have not experienced it. This day, I am just starting my field visit with Damien when the sky starts getting dark. I am hoping to finish visiting his fields and then move into his house to finish the questions if it starts to rain. However, we don’t have more than 10 minutes before the raindrops start falling. We hurry inside as the neighboring children rush to collect the manioc drying on mats outside. Within minutes, the first rain is falling hard, and then it turns to hailstones.
I won’t forget what followed: stones the size of marbles are falling so thick you can’t see more than a few meters outside. The noise of the deluge is so deafening on the tin roof that you can’t hear each other if you shout in each other’s ears. I first stand by the door to look outside, but the stones start bouncing on the doorstep into the house and it hurts to have them hit my legs; what must it be like to be outside now! We have to close the door and window firmly to keep the stones out.
When the storm is finally over half an hour later, we go outside to survey the damage. Most of the ice has melted, but it has left marks: large holes in the leaves of taro and bean seedlings, and torn-up banana leaves. Damien’s cabbage nursery, carefully planted with seedlings just poking through the ground, is all but destroyed.
However, Damien is tenacious. He has not let the weakness of his feet discourage him from working hard towards his future plan. He is determined not to sit down in his misery, but put in all his effort to develop himself and even become an example to his neighbors. I think even this setback of the hailstorm will not put him off for too long. His determination is an inspiration to me; how many times do I not feel discouraged when things get a little hard. I think about this as we walk back to the main road. Even though Damien has a hard time walking any distances, he shows us a guest’s honor and accompanies us all the way back.
Field visits, Interviews& trainings
