For Residents of Bungoma, Sugar is No Longer Sweet

<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE </xml><xml> </xml> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> Growing up in the sugar growing region of Western Kenya in the 1990s meant many things. It meant waking up in the morning and seeing the Elgon Mountains draped in mist. Sometimes the azure was so pure the mountains felt unreal; naked and beautiful. It meant chewing sugarcane all day. It meant avoiding school and hiding away in sugarcane plantations. It meant endangering our lives by pursuing tractor trailers and hanging from behind. It meant being whipped by parents, neighbours and teachers when we were caught.

At Christmas, families celebrated together: feasts and new clothes. Sugarcane farmers were proud citizens. They fed their kids, took them to good schools, built fired brick houses and boasted of a good social standing. Inevitably, there was a downside to this sweet tale. HIV/AIDs infections increased as the newly rich eloped to urban centres to spend their money on prostitutes, mostly from across the border in Uganda.

The distinctive feature of life in Bungoma and Mumias in the 1990s was these: expansive sugar plantations, jobs, regular income and happy families. This is not true today.  So much ground has shifted in the past decade and half. Due to poor government policies, sugar cartels, smugglers, and subdivision of land into uneconomical units, the sugar industry is on a rapid decline.

Today, many former employees of sugarcane firms, both skilled and unskilled, wander the village hopelessly. Uncertain when they will resume work, they have sunk into alcoholism. Chang’aa dens have tripled or quadrupled since trouble began to stalk sugar farmers. There is so much wasted energy, so many dysfunctional families and so many broken dreams.

Moses Simiyu, a thirty-two year old father of four is drunk when I meet to interview him. Eight years ago, he was a casual labourer at Nzoia Sugar Factory. Now he is jobless. His attempt to wade into the bodaboda business came to a sudden halt when he was involved in an accident and his Bajaj Motorcycle was impounded by traffic police. He is a defendant in an ongoing court case. Moses owns a small plot of land in the village of Malinda, Kabula Location, Bungoma County. When I arrive at his home, all I can here is shouting. He is drunk and hungry. His wife, a tall lean woman with short hair, greets me with a smile. The children have either gone out to play or  fetch firewood. I am hesitant about the whole interview thing. But my people have a saying; only the drunk tell the truth. Though inebriated, Moses invites into the house. He is suddenly sober and amiable. I am taken back by my host’s strange beaviour.

‘We have nothing.’ These are the first words that escape his lips. He casts his eyes around in a bored way. He looks terrible. His trousers are torn at the knees.

He recalls the broken promises from political leaders. I ask him what he thinks about President Uhuru Kenyatta’s recent trip to Mumias Sugar Factory where he pledged Ksh. 1 Billion.

‘They are liars,’ he says in a matter-of-fact way.

‘Who?’

‘The politicians. They are shameless liars. Before this administration there was the Kibaki administration. Our local leaders have routinely failed us. They don’t even raise these issues in Parliament.’

A trip into the hinterlands of Bungoma reveals scattered and pale sugarcane farms. On the roadside, a few goats are grazing. Mud-walled houses stand next to each other like ill-fated creatures. Scattered on the dirt roads are a few men and women tending small plots of maize, beans, nippier grass and sweet potatoes. 

This is where I was born. This is where I grew up. Everything seems to have changed since my childhood. For the first time since my childhood, I spent a week without catching sight of cane cutters and tractor trailers. Christmas will not be what it used to be. Most families cannot afford decent meals. They can’t send their children to good schools. They can’t even afford new clothes for the festivals. Young people are nowhere in sight. I cannot locate any of my childhood friends. Elders refer me to places in Nairobi, Mombasa, Nakuru, Eldoret and Isiolo. Some of my childhood friends have flown out of the country to UK, US, Norway, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

My interview with Moses brings up the 2017 general elections in Kenya. Out of curiosity, I ask him what parameters he will consider when electing leaders.

‘The truth is that I don’t know if I will vote,’ Moses tells me, ‘if I do, I will vote all of them out, from the first to the last man or woman. No one seems to keep their promises nowadays. Today’s leaders know nothing about integrity. It is a pity.’

Meanwhile the governor for Bungoma County, Ken Lusaka, is hopeful that the resuscitation of Panpaper Mills, which was recently sold to a private investor, will create hundreds of jobs. He has also urged young people to use the funds provided by the Youth Fund Initiative to venture into business.

Thomas Wanyonyi, a post graduate student at Moi University had this to say when I asked him about the state of unemployment in the region. ‘Young people should move from job seekers to job creators. I know there is a big challenge of accessing credit especially for young people. But we must live with the conviction that we can make the sun rise even if it’s unwilling to. The Youth Fund Initiative is a good starting point.’

As for the sugar growing commune of Western Kenya, there seems to be nothing but darkness at the end of the tunnel. As residents wait on their elected leaders and the government to show the way, despondency and alcoholism is sweeping through the land like a storm.

I look forward to celebrating this year’s Christmas with my siblings at my parents’ home in Bungoma. What I dread is the sight of able-bodied people like Moses wasting away in alcoholism because of lack of employment.  I wonder how Moses and his family will celebrate this year’s Christmas. Will his kids wear new clothes to church and feast all day like I used to when I was their age? I doubt not.