Godence BARANYIZIGIYE

78 years old.

12 children but some of them died, now I have 8. 5 boys and 3 girls.

I live here, this is my home.

I started around 1972, but during the war the coffee plantation was banned. They banned the whole plantation and I said we are not going to give up on this coffee plantation. My husband was still alive at that time and I said it to him as well. I told him: this will be the future of our children. When the war was cooling down we went back and started over. We farmed, we did everything needed, but we do not see any change. We couldn’t do big thing, because it was during war and we were hungry. When you are hungry, everything you do, you do it slowly. But we did not give up, we kept doing it until now. I am not done yet, I am laying grasses down. I am looking for banana leaves to make the grasses thicker.

We did that because we grew up seeing our father and father in law doing it and selling. So we thought let’s do the same.

I don’t know the exact number, but it is more than 400. From there all the way to the main street.

I like farming. Now I am loosing much strength, otherwise I like farming with my hands. Also I like to farm different crops for food and other stuff.

I get support from the coffee and I buy my clothes from the coffee. I bought goats and it helps me when I am sick to be able to go to a doctor. perserv

For now I just have 1 goat.

Yes of course, what else can I eat? I have one goat and one pig. Last year the money they paid us from the factory was not enough. Imagine they paid you 200, with this big family? That is not enough. I am telling you the truth, that is not enough for my family. They haven’t even paid us the rest of the salary, and now we are hungry.

The first challenge is now I am losing my strength because I am getting old. And now I mobilize my children to come and do the same work I usually do. I always tell them: you have to do something, even if it is one leaf. I tell them, do it. It will be beneficial for you when I am not here. That are the challenges.

My coffee gave me a good life. It gave me the ability to have more lands to be able to cultivate more crops and build my own house.

My dream is to get more land so that even if I am old and can not move around, my children can come and harvest many crops so that I can keep surviving.

Some of them help, some don’t.

Yes, I pay all of them, even those who do not help. Some of them have their own lives. Those who have found their lives, I am not paying.

I don’t know, because I was sick, I was not the one who took the coffee to the factory. My children are the ones who took care of the coffee last year.

Our coffee does not yield a lot. The receipt is in my house. I can send one of my children to get it and to show what I produced.

I don’t know that.