Mperabarozi Michael

I am 64 years old.

2 boys, 2 girls

Life is going on well, if nothing changes.

Since 1980, when I was 12 years old.

I applied for a job in Bancobu. I was given the job but after the while the job finished. My employer told me, Michael, let me tell you something. You are from upcountry, go and plant 100 trees of coffee. And those 100 trees of coffee will be providing clothes and food for you and for your wife. It will provide for you, because nowadays the jobs for people who are not educated are about to come to an end. When he told me that, I thought to myself and decided to plant more than 250 coffee trees. My dad was a coffee farmer. And when I started, I bought more land and planted more and more. I farmed up to 1000 trees and I said this is not enough when I am about to have children. I went up to 1500. When the war came, some of my coffee plantation were burned. Now I think I am remaining with around 1200 coffee trees.

I think I have 1230.

For example, here where we are sitting, going down there I think it is about 50 meters. I think that where my coffee plantation goes is far, up to 200 meters. It is not for me to precisely know how big my land is. Because if I do not have measuring tape, I can not be precise.

I cannot do that, because most of them were in a place where I cannot put the dried grasses. I am trying to maintain the current coffee trees I have with grasses.

Many things make me happy, I cannot name the one by one. The first thing that makes me happy, even though I am getting old, is having cattle and livestock. Having land is making me happy, and having the grasses to put on the land also makes me happy.

The money we get from the coffee, if we consider, it is not enough. It is not enough to use the money for other projects. If we pay the people who carry the grasses and take care of the coffee you pay more money. If you compare to what you get, you get less.

Sometimes I will take trip and go down the city to get distracted. And when I see I can buy a ticket from the coffee I am selling that makes me happy. And I enjoy my time in the city and come back. It makes me feel that it is an honour to see what I get from what I am doing.

What makes me happy is that I am farming, I have grown coffee trees and I have these grasses that is already attached with the soils. So even when the rain comes, the floods, for others it happens that the water wipes away everything, but for me it doesn’t happen. That is why I have the opportunity to plant new baby coffee trees. For me I get happy, because sometimes I plant tomatoes, or other plants and see the harvest that I have from these plants.

For me the challenges are always there. Before you build the washing station in Kinama, the other one was so far. During the time of harvesting, it was stressful and annoying because the washing station was so far. So when you build the washing station here, that was joy for us. Until today you see that I am never late to bring my harvest to the washing station. So I cannot complain about coffee, because it helps me so much in the main areas of life. And because I have always loved the coffee farming, many of my friends are taking the same road, I am an influence to them.

As they say, in our culture, you have to keep looking for what you need until you die, I share the same thought as my brother, my main goal is to buy more lands if I have more money, for them to help me. As you can see I am approaching my old time, as you get old, you get many sicknesses. If you have land, you can sell it to pay for the treatments you need when you get old.

The children are involved and love coffee farming.

Yes, one of them even went Congo where he bought the coffee and brought it to Burundi.