Friday 14 October 2011

The economy of little items

I will try very hard not to write about rain again for a while after this but I have to mention the rain today. It has rained for most of the afternoon and evening - very hard at times. This either means that I am very righteous, (James 5:16), or that somebody else is praying for rain as well. The 1,000 litre water tank outside our office was pretty much empty yesterday and it is now a third full. Our crops are now well watered and our slave labour force can have a few days off from the bucket irrigation.

Before it started raining I had a great morning measuring up the land we have recently bought and then drawing out a farm plan. It was great working in the fresh air. I can't believe how fortunate I am to be working in this place. I never imagined becoming a farmer of any sort but it is a great job. I reckon we have just over a hectare of land for farming and our Agriculture College so there is plent of scope for experimentation. Mary, Duncan and I will get down to the serious business of planning out next year's farm calender in the next couple of days.

On a completely different note - I am a news addict when I am in the UK, and turn into a recovering news addict in Kenya. This is mostly because there is so much to do that I don't have time to follow the news, (and also because we can't get CNN!). The news free lifestyle is highly recommended.

That said I do,occasionally read the daily paper. Yesterday The Standard, (which I prefer to Kenya's other daily paper The Daily Nation) ran a series of stories about the Hard Times that people are currently experiencing in Kenya. The Kenyan Shilling is tanking against most of the world's currencies at the moment and inflation is at 17%. This is making life very tough for most Kenyans and especially the poor, (who make up over 50% of the population. It is sobering reading about the daily grind of feeding a family on about £1 per day.

I was particularly struck by a story about how "Kenyans turn to 'kadogo' shopping". The story was about Kenyan shopkeepers and kiosk owners packing staples like tea, sugar and ugali, (maize) in very small amounts and still not being able to sell them because people cannot afford them. Sugar is especially expensive at the moment and is being sold in amounts as small as an eigth of a kilogramme. The newspaper story says:

"In Kisian Village, Kisumu County, the packet is retailing at 28 shillings, (about 18 pence in the UK), the epitome of the 'Kadogo economy' (economy of little items)."

Despite this attempt at making sugar affordable a shopkeeper complained that "Since Monday I have only sold two packets of Kobole - the quarter kilogramme packets are not being bought."

Another trader, Gladys Achieng, 26 "struggles to sell cooking fat that she has packaged into sizes of about 10 grammes which she sells for 5 shillings per packet. Locals aptly refer to this packet as oloyo non (it is better than nothing)." The language of poverty is poignantly ironic.

The final indignity of this level of poverty is reflected in the economies that the poor make to keep body and soul together. Gerald Wafula lives in a slum and earns 200 shillings a day (£1.30 or $1.86) working as a labourer on a building site. The rocketing price of staple foods hits the poorest the hardest. Gerald's solution to the problem is heartbreakingly simple - "We have been forced to have one meal a day and do away with some items." Gerald, his wife and three children will certainly be going to bed hungry most days.

The economy of little items may become a global phenomenon. I don't know how the developed world would cope with it. Living in Kenya you get used to the stories of poverty - but it doesn't make it any easier to deal with. It makes me all the more determined that our team at Hope and Kindness will do all they can to develop solutions to the basic problems of food and water in our community. I really do thank God for the rain.

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