On less than a dollar a day yet smiling

To the general public, the baobab and tamarind are just wild trees. But for Kyumbi Manzi and her family they are a treasure that got then through the just ended historic drought.

Manzi, a 40-year-old mother of five who hails from Muthunzuu village in the heart of Kyuso District in Eastern Province says without the wild trees they would long be dead following the three-year drought.

“The peak was last year, when I delivered a baby boy in the middle of the drought. There was no water, no food, no vegetation, and no hope. Many times, I slept on an empty stomach for days in a row, and yet I had to breastfeed my baby,” recalls Manzi.

These were times when the lady could boil wild fruits and drink the soup for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

“A half a dollar in a day would have been a lot of money for us, let alone the one dollar that is said to be a gauge for poverty in this country,” she added.

Roots

Surprisingly, the tamarindus tree yield fruits even in dry season, making it the most ideal crop for the community.

The family also turned to other wild fruits and roots have to be boiled for several hours before chewing them and drinking the soup.

“Some roots are poisonous. That is why one has to boil them for several hours and pour away the soup maybe four or five times in order to reduce the toxicity,” narrated Manzi who could only communicate in the local language – Kikamba.

Her house is raised a few metres from the ground to keep off hungry wild animals including hyenas, which could easily prey on the children.

However, following the recent rains, Manzi’s family harvested a few bags of maize, which she hopes will keep them going for several months. But even with the maize secure in their small granary, Manzi and her family are not about to start feasting.

“We have learned to ‘negotiate’ with our stomachs. This means that after supper, we ‘urge’ the stomach to remain calm and wait for another helping probably after 24 hours.

Only small children can get a cup of porridge in the morning. The term ‘lunch’ is foreign even during the harvesting,” she said.

Because of the rains, the family can gather vegetables from their five-acre piece of land to supplement the maize meal.

Solution

Following past experiences, Manzi’s husband, Manzi Nzoka has embarked on a project to domesticate the wild trees that saved their lives.

“The tamarind or Mkwaju has been at the centre of our lives, I have all reasons to plant as many of them as I can,” said Nzoka.  

Nzoka says that despite the fact that he has been able to survive on alms for sometime, the method may not be a solution for their problems.

“Relief food is not sustainable and one cannot depend on it for survival. It is more meaningful if we are supported to grow what can survive in this environment.”

At the moment, the 50 year-old man is involved in a donor poverty alleviation programme. “Some organisations have helped us put up dams and other rain water harvesting and storage technologies.

They are training us on how to grow drought tolerant fruit trees like mangoes. But I have insisted that these crops can only supplement wild trees especially the mkwaju, which I trust so much.”

Wild trees

“What we are introducing is an incentive based programme towards improving food security,” said Jacobus Kiilu, of Actionaid International.

So far, Nzoka has planted over 200 mangoes trees through the programme with a supplementation of 85 tamarind trees and a few baobabs.

In Kyuso District alone, the programme is handling 29,000 individuals, where a number of them have turned to domesticating of wild trees just like Nzoka and his family.

“We allow them to plant what they know well. However, we encourage them to grow other drought tolerant crops like sorghum and millet,” said Kiilu.

The most preferred wild tree in the area – Tamarindus indica is a leguminous plant, thus good for the soil because of its nitrogen fixing ability.

At the moment there is a bumper maize harvest in Ukambani but not many happy faces among farmers.

The region has harvested up to 300,000 bags of maize planted during the short rains season but the growers are unlikely to gain much from their labour.

Prices

Due to lack of markets and the poor road network, middlemen are moving from village to village buying the produce at a pittance to later sell it at high prices.

Come rain or shine, it seems, there is no winning for farmers in this part of Eastern Province.

During the drought, they suffer for lack of food and water. When the skies open and the rains pour, they harvest plenty of food but instead of reaping from the blessings, they gnaw their fingers.

In some places, for instance, middlemen are buying a kilogramme of maize for as little as Sh8. Manzi says she is going to hold onto her harvest no mater the temptations to sell.