“I tell my children to work hard because it is how we will fight the poverty. My children bring me the most happiness- I have seven of them and they are all farmers too.” Ninasi’s role model is the person who taught him how to farm. In Burundi, subsistence farming is how most of the …
Category Archives: Farmer Stories
Dorothy: Burundian Coffee Farmer
Growing Coffee is like raising a child. You have to wash them, nurture them, and look after them. We spent part of a Saturday at Dorothy’s house on Gaharo hill. The minute she saw our baby Ari she scooped her up and led our whole family into her home. The dirt floors were cleanly swept …
Burundi Coffee Farmer: Espéciose Manirakiza
War continues to pulse it’s reaching veins through lives and lands long after the guns stop ringing. For Espéciose, that means being the sole provider for her 6 children in one of the most poverty stricken nations on earth. Her husband was killed in the Burundian civil war that ended in 2006 and she has …
Burundi Coffee Farmer Story: Charles Ndayishimiye
CHARLES Gahaga Hill Charles asked us what all the fuss what about, “Why is the white lady (muzungu) here with all her cameras?” he said. I told him the pictures were for me. A project I could not stop shooting, a thing I could not stop doing. Telling his story, I told him, was important …
A Burundi Coffee Farmer Story: Tharcis
When Tharcis (Tar-cease) Ntahonkuriye wandered into my makeshift studio space in the coffee hills, this 76 year old mostly toothless coffee farmer won me over instantly.
Burundi Coffee Farmer Story | Rosato Rugoke
This is Rosato and he’s a Burundi coffee farmer…When he looked into my camera lens, I felt like I saw his entire soul just hanging out in the open. Like many Burundians, Rosato is not sure how old he is. He thinks that he might be 85. Rosato is one of the founding members of …