Poverty reigns in Nyeri village sitting on precious clay

Gibson Kioge and Paul Maina stack ready energy saver jikos inside their makeshift warehouse at Mweru in Nyeri County. [Mose Sammy, Standard]

On the main road to Murang’a County from Mukurweini town is a small village sitting on what can only be described as a gold mine.

Oblivious of their luck, young men and women shovel and deposit large heaps of soil on the side of the road and sell it for a pittance.

Like clockwork, lorries and pick-up trucks arrive at the site ever day and collect the soil which costs Sh7,000 for a lorry-load, 13 tonnes.

This has been the norm since the 1960s when large deposits of ceramic ball clay were discovered in Mweru village, Nyeri County.

Ceramic ball clay is highly sought after as it is used to make ceramic tiles, toilet bowls and bathroom sinks. And every day lorries flock to the village, which is said to have one of the largest deposits of this precious commodity in the country.

Making bricks

Ball clay is an important raw material in production of sanitary ware due to its mechanical strength. It gives the sanitary ware handling strength in the moulding stage.

What the harvesters do not realise is that while they sell the large amounts of clay for as little as Sh7,000 per lorry, the brokers and middlemen then transport them to industries in Nairobi where the clay fetches as much as Sh40,000 per tonne.

So lucrative is the product that a Chinese firm has set up shop in Kajiado County and is now collecting up to 20 lorries of ceramic ball clay per trip from the area.

While the fields are littered with men and women digging away in the wetlands for the clay, and others idling beside the road waiting for the lorries, a group of four men has decided to take a different approach.

The men are members of the Rwarie Conservation Group, which has 15 members. They are making bricks and energy saving jikos using the valuable clay.

“We know this clay is valuable but we do not have the expertise to exploit it to its full potential. For now we are just trying to diversify and find an alternative source of income from farming,” says Godfrey Irungu, Rwarie's member.

Change tack

Peter Maina, who is the group’s treasurer, used to grow vegetables, unaware that his farm was rich in ceramic ball clay.

When he was a farmer, he would allow the harvesters to dig trenches measuring eight by four feet for Sh500, which would fetch eight wheelbarrows of clay.

It was not until he realised how much the clay was fetching outside the county that he decided to change tack.

Irungu and Maina are the few locals who have realised that for decades they have been exploited and are trying to change their circumstances one brick at a time.

“If people here realise that the soil they give up for Sh500 can mould a toilet bowl worth Sh5,000, perhaps they will change their minds,” Irungu said.

Once the farm owner sells the soil at Sh500, the harvester pays Sh600 as labour for carrying it to the road side.

The lorry drivers who show up are often ‘tipped’ with Sh1,500 so they can park next to the harvesters’ clay mounds.

And woe unto a harvester who decides to transport the clay to Nairobi on their own as they will be expected to pay Sh2,400 for fuel.

Out of the Sh7,000 paid to the harvesters by the businessmen, most take home a paltry Sh2,000 for their troubles.

Efforts to change the fortunes of the clay harvesters and the village as a whole have not borne fruit.

Across the road from Maina and Irungu’s makeshift factory is the Mukurweini Ceramic School, closed and abandoned.

The school was built in 2010 with an aim to refine, package raw ball clay as well as mould and glaze the final products.

Mukruweini MP Anthony Kiai says the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) team is in the process of establishing why the school closed.

“I know the ball clay deposits are very valuable, unfortunately they are not benefiting the locals or the constituency,” he says.

The institution would have offered the harvesters better bargaining power.