Spare a thought for these hustlers

Sand harvesters make hay when the sun is not shining. On the way to Nyeri just  before crossing Tana river, several lorries queue to load sand from a small river that feeds into Tana. I met a young man busy making a mound of sand near the river. He sells it for about Sh4,000. 

The young man says heavy rains bring more sand and enrich his pockets. While the rest of us are complaining about heavy rain, others are rejoicing. Heavy rain carries sand from upstream and deposits it downstream where entrepreneurs harvest it and sell. It is a back-breaking business, without machines, using manual shovels.

The booming construction industry in Nairobi and other towns means there’s market for sand. But the last time I checked the price of sand was much higher than the Sh4,000 quoted by the young man.

The real money makers are not the harvesters who do the donkey work, it’s the transporters and brokers who sell the sand at higher prices.

Sand harvesters join farmers who also do donkey work while brokers and transporters make a killing from their hard work.  Think of the patience of waiting for months for crops to mature with uncertainty of rain then being underpaid. Think of the patience to get a lorry of sand from a river bed.

It is sad that no one takes care of the mostly young and jobless men. Unable to organise themselves to fight for their rights, they live from hand to mouth, struggling until they grow old and are replaced by another generation of hustlers. It seems the vicious cycle of poverty we read about in economics textbooks is real. Not far from the sand harvesters are charcoal sellers, perhaps caught in the same vicious cycle.

Some could argue we need not bother with such hustlers; they never worked hard enough in school. That’s what we were made to believe. But the truth might be that they are already educated and doing an important service that needs to be rewarded. What if they did their best in school and reached the limit of their intelligence?

Exploitation of such sand harvesters might be lowering the cost of building your house just like the exploitation of farmers might lead to cheaper food.  Underpaid casual workers walk to work in the rain or hot sun making way for your cheaper industrial products, if the manufacturers lower the price because of cheap labour.

Some will think I am a communist by raising such issues, yet they are important for social harmony and human dignity.  We are all equal and deserve a good pay for honest work. Spare a thought for sand harvesters, whether you are a builder or a policy maker. We need to start breaking across class lines and give dignity and economic progress to those at lowest levels in the social ranks. They too play their role in moving the reluctant wheel of progress.