Interview
What is your name?
NYANDWI Venat
How old are you?
I was born in 1955.
How many children do you have?
I have 9 children. 3 girls, 2 boys, the other 4 passed away.
Are all your children married?
The girls are all married.
Do you live on this mountain?
No, I just farm here.
When did you start coffee farming?
I don’t remember exactly.
How old were you if you guessed?
I was around 15 years old.
Why did you start coffee farming?
I though about starting farming coffee, because I saw others getting food, clothes and living from the coffee.
How many coffee trees do you think you have?
If I count, it is about 200.
Which things in life bring makes you happy? Outside of coffee farming?
What makes me happy is when I farm the coffee and harvest and that I get food from it. I like to be able to buy meat or to buy shoes.
What do you like about cultivating coffee?
I like it because it changed my life from living in small house with a roof of grasses.
What are some of the main challenges you have in coffee farming?
Everyone has challenges. The first challenge I have is when I don’t have grasses to lay down. That is what makes me frustrated.
But you have mountains full of grasses?
Yes, they are full, but we don’t have money to buy the grasses from the owners.
From the money that we pay you guys, don’t you have enough money to buy the grasses?
We don’t have enough money. Because we pay the workers who help us with the harvest and the coffee processing, to cut the grasses. Sometimes when the harvest is not good, we still have to pay them and give them a little bit.
Since you started coffee farming, what are the changes you can see in your life?
The most changes that it brought into my life, is that when we have harvest, I can feed my family and take care of my wife. and also I get something to buy.
What are you hopes/dreams for the future?
My first wish is for you guys to raise our salaries.
But we raised already your salary?
I am not aware of that, because when you say that you raised our salaries, we did not harvest at that time yet.
Are your children involved in the coffee farming and will they take it over? Even when you are not around?
Yes, they help me.
How much harvest did you get from last year?
Last year we did not get much and this year also not much.
Is it because you had cut down the coffee trees?
Yes, as you can see the baby coffee trees are still growing.
What are the grasses referred to by coffee farmers?
During dry season, farmers cut and dry long grasses, which they then put around their trees for the purpose of mulching (covering land to reduce weeds and help soil retain moisture).
Location
Images (18 Files)
Venat Nyandwi can be used for content around any of the coffees produced from the 