15 July 2007
Nairobi — Even after spending their entire adult lives in tea farms, many labourers cannot afford to return home upon retirement. Stephen Makabila and Titus Too explain why these latter-day slaves hang around tea bushes
Mr Cosmas Aloo is a career tea picker who lives with his family in a one-room house in Nandi-South District.
Cosmas Aloo
He is one of the most experienced tea-pickers in the vast Nandi Hills tea fields.
Aloo has spent most of his adult life plucking leaf buds.
Most tea pickers in Nandi Hills come from Nyanza and Western provinces.
There about 4,000 labourers in small scale and large scale tea farms who come from Nyanza.
Aloo says he knows about 200 people from Seme, his home area, who work in various tea farms.
Aloo started his tea-picking career in Kericho District 20 years ago. And he would have stuck on had the multi-national tea firm not retired him after reaching the mandatory age limit.
And like many of his colleagues, he did not pack his bags to rest his tired fingers and bones in Seme.
He moved to a private tea firm in Nandi Hills to continue toiling.
"I have been soldiering on for the past 21 years and I am yet to earn enough money to start a business or improve my life," says Aloo.
Labourers live from hand-to-mouth
Aloo talks about the hardships he and his closest friend, Mr Daniel Odhiambo, also from Seme, have gone through in tea bushes.
Aloice Obunga
They are typical labourers who have no option except to live from hand-to-mouth. To the duo, and their colleagues, no work means no food.
There is little to show that life will be better for him in the near future.
"Life here is hard. We work continuously from dawn to dusk, come rain or shine," says Aloo, shivering as The Sunday Standard interviewed him at 5.30pm at a tea estate near Mugundoi trading centre in Nandi Hills.
Aloo says poverty in Nyanza has forced many people to move to either Nandi Hills or Kericho where they work in farms.
And many hardly go back home, where many of their kin languish in poverty. Most of them have inter-married with fellow tea pickers and made Nandi Hills their permanent home.
"Some people do not return home because they do not have anything there and they also have families here," says Aloo.
Retired by a multi-national tea firm
For the last 27 years, Mr Alloys Obunga, 58, has also toiled in the vast tea estates of Nandi Hills. He, too, is a career tea picker.
But like his comrades, he has nothing to show for the toil spanning close to three decades. He cannot afford a smile.
Speaking from his one-room house at Leting farm, a short distance from Nandi Hills Township, Obunga says life has not been a bed of roses.
Anzungu Khayumbi
This is the only shelter for his family that comprises his wife Loyce and their seven children. The house is full during school holidays when all children are at home.
A multi-national tea firm retired Obunga five years ago, after he hit the retirement age. And due to poverty at his Gem village, Homa Bay District, he chose to seek employment in a private tea farm.
He had worked there since 1980, but like Aloo, he could not go back to his rural home in Nyanza, because he needed to continue fending for his family. And he had not saved anything.
"When I was retired from Kaitet estate in 2002, I decided to seek employment from a private out-growers' farm because the benefits I received from the multi-national estate could not sustain me and my family in Nyanza," says Obunga.
Workers Union can do little to help
He has three children in nursery school, four in primary, and one in secondary.
Obunga earns Sh5 per kilo of green tea leaves picked.
"The multi-nationals used to pay me Sh6.30 per kilo and we also had a union," says Obunga.
But Kenya Plantation and Agricultural Workers Union can do little to help him. He is a casual labourer in a private tea farm.
For Mr Joseph Matiko from Kuria District, 34 years of tea picking is yet to put a smile on his face or money in his pockets. And he is still competing plucking green tea leaves.
"Age is not an issue because I need to work for my family. We are paid according to amount of tea we pick and I try my level best to hit 50kgs a day," says Matiko, who works at Toyoi Tea Estate.
At 56 years, the man says he will not retire soon because tea picking is his lifeline.
His day starts at 5am
He joined tea picking when earnings were at Sh70 per month, but he is currently making Sh3,000 per month.
"I will still go on picking tealeaves because I have to feed my family of 10 children back in Kuria," says Matiko.
His day starts at 5am when he wakes up to prepare breakfast. He has to be in the tea fields at 7am.
"When you need money, you have to sweat for it and that is what I do despite my age," adds Matiko.
His friend, Mr Joram Amayengo has been picking tea since 1975. He says only death will stop him from working in the tea estates.
"I do not know any other source of income apart from picking tea. This is what has sustained my family. My children are now adults, some also working in tea estates," says Amayengo.
The 57-year-old father of 11 comes from Eregi in Kakamega and was recently retired from Kibwarei Tea Estate before moving to Toyoi.
"One of my sons is a clerk in a tea estate in Nandi, while another one is a tea picker. I am happy they have jobs to sustain them," Amayengo consoles himself.
Immorality, consumption of illicit brews and drugs
Survival for the fittest can best describe the working and living conditions in tea growing areas where housing is a problem.
Immorality, consumption of illicit brews and drugs are common practices.
Sources within the plantations say some tea pickers intoxicate themselves to withstand the harsh working conditions that include wet and cold weather.
At the Nandi Hills District Hospital, medical records indicate most of those admitted or treated for HIV/Aids related ailments are from tea estates.
"We stay in single room houses, which we sometimes share with other families," says Amayengo.
Although unbearable to any average man, Anzunzu Khayumbi, who also retired last year from a multi-national tea company, says he has no alternative.
Khayumbi, who hails from Turbo in Trans Nzoia District, accuses tea firms of failing to provide sufficient medical services to workers.
"We work in wet weather conditions which at times subject us to diseases such as malaria and pneumonia but there are no adequate health services," says Khayumbi.
Tea picking is a hazardous job
Tea picking is a demanding exercise that goes on even when it rains. Wet weather encourages green leaves to sprout fast.
Khayumbi says tea picking is a hazardous job. He cites three workers who were recently hit by lightning.
"They have not been compensated. One of them was dismissed thereafter," adds Khayumbi.
Tea pickers are also faced with a serious water problem, because there is no piped water in some camps.
Water from the streams is unsafe due to discharge of chemicals from tea plantations.
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