Conversation.
Dwelling in people’s stories. In who they are.
And in what they bring with them into the present.
The events and experiences that they have been a part of.
Or things that they have merely heard about.
1
Hannah and I sit in a Milan apartment. 8PM, but the windows remain wide open. It’s hard for me to believe that anywhere in Europe can be as hot as Kampala.
Twice, the wailing of ambulance sirens on the street below. I keep thinking about a conversation with someone else earlier that week. They told me about the silence of the city, save for ambulance sirens during lockdown in 2020. Perhaps it is why i’m overly sensitive to Hannah’s well being during the interview. I repeatedly ask whether she would like some water. I keep updating us on how long we’ve been at it, and pointing out that we will finish soon.
We’re recording. No copious note taking. We can both concentrate on the conversation.
She tells me of the 1,000 workers that her family’s coffee plantation employs at the peak of the harvest season. Located in the San Marcos region, it is one of the oldest coffee farms in Guatemala.
We talk about the traditional sleeping mats that the workers travel with when they come into the region to look for work. The farm management has recently made iron beds that they offer the workers to replace the sleeping mats.
She tells me that entire families travel together; Father, Mother and children. And all but the very youngest of them join the workforce. That the women tend to get paid less because they are assumed to be a part of a couple and therefore their income is seen as ‘additional’
That there are ‘men jobs’ and ‘women jobs’. Men jobs pay more and end up attracting the interest of the more ambitious women. But that rarely does a woman succeed in getting hired for a ‘man job’.
That the leadership and supervisory roles attract the highest pay. But because women will not be respected as leaders culturally, it is a waste of time for them to aspire to these jobs, or for them to be appointed to them.
2
He says that he has called to wish me a Happy New Year. But, I am curious about his real reason for reaching out. We haven’t had any business for many months now.
I suspect that he’s putting out feelers about his clients who sometimes ask my opinion on certain things before they commit to deals with him. They’ve met me, they haven’t met him. I take the opportunity to put out my own feelers. He is a coffee trader; he will have the latest.
I congratulate him on a year of high coffee prices. You must be swimming in cash, I say.
How? It is so expensive now. Export is stressful. Don’t do it if you have high blood pressure or diabetes. There are so many people trying to scam you.
Then, these high prices that you’re talking about… every farmer wants cash. If I need 600 million Ugandan shillings to fill a (shipping) container… It is Multi Nationals who have that kind of cash. They have access to so much cash including low interest rate loans from their countries. Their agricultural loans are even further subsidised for them by their governments. They can operate at 2% interest while we are at 21% at best. You women would collapse under this pressure.
I think he’s done but he then adds: Actually, there’s even a lot of maths in these things. And you know how you women don’t like maths.
He’s concluded with his thoughts on women because he called while I worked on this article and I asked why there are so few women in Uganda exporting coffee.
3
An Italian coffee trader I speak to says the market doesn’t care too much whether coffee was grown by women or not.
I am weighing up the merits of an idea a certain women’s trade association is considering. They want to develop a brand around selling specialty green coffee as ‘produced by women’. And they have hired me to spend time doing such ‘considering’ on their behalf.
The trader says that his negotiations centre around whether he can still make a profit at the price he is being offered. That the roasters he sells to have to sell to families concerned about their grocery budgets, not about coffee grown by women.
4
This one is young. A Ugandan rocket scientist who until recently lived and worked in the USA. The interview was not planned. I happened to bump into him at a cafe where I waited to interview his friend who owns the place.
Alex returned to Uganda to develop and make full use of his family property. Coming from Eastern Uganda’s Mount Elgon region which boasts some of Uganda’s best coffee, he decided to establish a coffee trading business, buying green coffee from different farmers, roasting some of it and exporting, first through his contacts in the USA. The plan is that the business would then fund other projects.
I ask specifically about the women farmers who supply him with coffee.
He says, “I think there is a niche for women coffee farmers in the specialty coffee sector. When you want quality, well sorted coffee, it is usually the women farmers who will have it.”
Somehow we get into the global conversation around coffee and sustainability. His mixed feelings on the subject make for an interesting conversation. As a trader, he has avoided getting himself involved in it. Sourcing green coffee and finding good buyers to sell it to being more pressing issues for him than questions about regenerating the land, or conserving soil and water.
He sneers when he considers it.
“Industrialised countries, after they have made their wealth, are now finding their consciences and bothering us about developing our nations’ industrial sectors.”
I sit and wait as he thinks about what he has said.
Then he smiles and says that after he started growing his own coffee, and had interacted with the land, he is now more aware of what is going on with the soil and plants. That he thinks much more about the effect of his current decisions, particularly with regard to chemical fertilisers, to future productivity and quality of his coffee.
But he is adamant on his point about industrialisation.
5
She heads up an international organisation for women in coffee. I’ve kept congratulating myself for having gotten the interview.
“How do you measure impact?” I ask.
It’s the first time she’s faltering in her answers.
It is an important question, and perhaps a chink in their armour.
6
“There’s a term for it,” she says. “They call it ‘selling flowers’.”
I want to point out that this is no term, in the ‘special word’ way that she’s using it. That this is literally what they are doing. But this is no time to be a wise ass.
We are discussing the design for a possible project with the coffee farmer group that she heads. A project to fill the income gaps during off season. Also, an income source that the mostly women member-farmers can have ownership over.
Desperate for money to cover urgent needs, what with no medical insurance and any such contingencies, the farmers make deals with money lenders staking their upcoming coffee harvest for collateral (while the plants are still flowering) - selling flowers.
My suggestion is that we put a coffee spin on it. Because Grants Writing 101 says you must speak the language of the funder. And the funder likes coffee projects. She’s adamant that any supplemental income should have nothing to do with coffee. Otherwise the same issues we are trying to solve will come round to it.
“The women have no ownership or authority over anything coffee-related. This income must be independent of that,” she insists.
I will think about it, how to spin it. It is a coffee community after all. We shall work out how to get a coffee projects funding organisation to fund a non-coffee related project for coffee farmers. Perhaps a conversation needs to be had with someone on the funder side, before any words fill a project document.
7
He is one of the top people in a cultural organisation that run a nationwide movement that set out to promote coffee growing and achieve higher and better quality yields at a time when many farmers were giving up on it. The campaign was so successful that a coffee export company has arisen out of it.
He’s got a deep self-assured voice. Used to being listened to by everyone in the room. He has opted for an interview via Zoom. I would have preferred to meet in person. After all; what is a conversation when you cannot watch a body move in discomfort, or hear sighs and grunts that accompany an opinion expressed.
A raucous breaks out in the compound below my upstairs work room. A group of children including my younger son have come up with the exciting idea of hitting plastic buckets as drums and singing at the tops of their voices. I quickly mute my computer, as I try to keep up with the conversation and at the same time yell at the children to go sing somewhere else. The children scatter but my son ensures I see the disapproving look on his face that says: ‘unreasonable mother’.
We discuss women’s involvement in the more lucrative parts of the coffee chain. He confirms that there are hardly any women who are exporting coffee from Uganda. He says the only women seated at the helm of coffee exporting companies in Uganda are co-owners with their husbands or have inherited them from deceased husbands.
I’d like us to discuss who is to blame for all this.
He says it is a mindset problem. And that he is disturbed by the lack of confidence amongst many women that he interacts with. And like the exporter, he too brings up maths.
“Many are still convinced that only men can do maths. On some boards and committees I’m on, the men are the ones volunteering to tackle financial stuff. The women are happy to work on HR and other less mathematical tasks. It is a mindset.”
He tells me about his daughter who has recently completed a First Class degree in Engineering. He says women aim too low.
We talk about why the women’s movement doesn’t seem to have had much effect on this over the years.
“You must involve the men. These efforts that are targeting women only are even frowned upon in the communities. Men will not allow their wives go for trainings anymore.”
I ask him whether he sees himself as one of the would be champions that he is talking about. After all, he has the ear of the Kabaka (king of the Baganda) and the Katikiro (Buganda prime minister). He says they are making some efforts towards this.
But just like the Italian coffee trader, I suspect that he is engrossed in running his various businesses and doesn’t see much time available to spend on what he sees as activism.
Where do perceptions start? When did two people who don’t know each other decide that women don’t like maths? How many conversations does it take to make up a mindset, and how many, to start a movement?
Fascinating. Think there's definitely a market - the growers "just" need to target appropriately. It seems quite a popular option with small specialist businesses; and Café Direct and Equal Exchange are two of the larger mass-market companies which feature products grown by women.
Another immensely valuable post Susanna. 🙏
I don't have any specific retail experience relating to coffee, but I reckon the "produced by women" stamp would appeal to a lot of consumers – heck, at least 50% of the population surely! I wonder if it might require PR campaigns in the target markets though to really feel the benefit.