Karimojong women turn to stone quarrying to survive

Apr 28, 2010

AT Kimbinze village on the periphery of Lomungang Mountain in Moroto district, north-eastern Uganda, Mary Ratha braves the cold morning breeze to harvest stones in a routine race against time.

By Frederick Womakuyu

AT Kimbinze village on the periphery of Lomungang Mountain in Moroto district, north-eastern Uganda, Mary Ratha braves the cold morning breeze to harvest stones in a routine race against time.

Armed with only strong lungs and the will to survive, Ratha works for long periods on dusty, snake and scorpion-infested rocks to earn sh200 a day. The money will be used to buy food and scholastic materials for her 10 children.

Ratha’s typical day starts at 6:00am. “I report to the site and look for the rocks to crack. With a hoe, I excavate the rocks until I have enough to work on.”
Using a big stone, Ratha breaks the huge rock into small pieces that can be used for mixing concrete.

“When I get tired, especially when it is extremely hot, I rest. Since I cannot afford lunch, I drink water and take a nap for about 30 minutes,” she adds.

Ratha says her family often goes hungry. During the 2008 drought, she lost all her crops, two children and four head of cattle. It was an agonising moment for her.

After facing another crop failure in the 2009 drought, Ratha quit farming.
“That is when I went into stone-harvesting. I saw a number of women doing it since there is a construction boom here,” she explains.

Ratha started stone quarrying in January 2009. For each basin of stones, she earns sh200.

On a good day, Ratha says she makes between sh2,000 and sh3,000. And on a bad one, she does not get any customers.

“During this time, I sleep hungry. My husband is jobless, but he does not even come to assist me. In our culture, men are supposed to take care of cows, while women build huts and look for food.

“But ever since the Government disarmed us, we have lost all our animals to armed bandits from Turkana and West Pokot in Kenya.

Our men have not been taught income-generating skills. Without guns, our men are useless; they cannot protect our cattle or raid other communities to increase the herds,” she adds.

Ratha says with her new job, she is able to buy food and pay school fees for her children.

“I have four children in school and six at home. Although the Government brought us free primary education, we are required to pay sh1,000 for examinations on top of buying uniforms and scholastic materials. I cannot have all my children at school because I do not have enough money,” she explains.

Recently, her eldest son got married, but she fears he has become a burden.
“We sold all our 10 goats to buy the three cows out of the 30 that he was asked for as bride price.

He still has to get the remaining 27, but at least he will work with his wife to raise them,” she says.

Her daughter-in-law, Rose Loma, a 19-year-old mother of three, says her parents were poor and desperate, so they pulled her out of Primary Seven to get married.

“It was against my will. One day I woke up and found a young man sleeping in my bed. I did not object because my father had okayed everything.

In our culture, when a father or a guardian man makes a decision, you cannot reverse it,” she says with tears rolling down her face.

Loma’s husband had nothing, not even a hut. She had to construct it herself.
“I now earn a living from stones. My husband is a drunkard. He does not contribute anything in the home. He expects to get everything from me,” she says.

Danger in the quarries
Loma says recently she hit her finger with a stone. “I just tied it with a cloth and continued with the work. I used herbs to treat it since I did not have money for medication,” she says.

Like the Stone Age period, Loma and a group of about 50 other women use stones as tools to crush the rocks. They cannot afford hammers.

Two weeks ago, Ratha was buried by a rock that collapsed on her, leaving only her head and hands hanging out.
“I thought that I was dead. But some how, God saved me. I am still receiving herbs from local medicine men. I have to continue working to get food,” Ratha says.

Just a day after the quarry had collapsed, Ratha’s daughter, Helen Amiti, 15, was bitten by a scorpion. “I was admitted to Moroto Hospital, but I am now better. I have to work to get food,” she says.

At the beginning of February, 21-year-old Betty Lukwakwokor was bitten by a cobra, but never lived to share her story.

“She was lifting a rock when the cobra bit her neck. We ran for our lives and when we returned, we found her dead,” Amiti says, adding: “I guess the cobra is still around but we have to work to get food.”

Determination
These Karimojong women are not about to give up. “We would rather die trying to earn an income to buy food than starve. The Government has tried to introduce farming in the region, but the crops die as a result of the drought,” Ratha says.

She urges the Government to introduce irrigation in Karamoja to save them from drought.

“If there is water for us, our animals and crops, Karamoja women will be happy. Sometimes, water dries in the entire region and we walk for miles to reach boreholes.”

Amiti says the health sector in the region is also doing badly.
“When I go to the government health centre for treatment, I do not find drugs. The health workers prescribe the medicine for me and tell me to buy it elsewhere.

I am poor and I cannot afford to buy drugs. Here women also lack family planning services. We survive by visiting herbal healers.”

Ratha calls upon the Government to help Karimojong women come out of poverty, which, according to the 2002 population census, stands at over 70%.

“I have heard about gender programmes aimed at empowering women, but these have not reached Karamoja or if they have, they are benefiting a few people who are running non-governmental organisations,” she explains.

Ratha urges development partners to visit the region and check out what is on the ground rather than believe lies from the programme implementers.

“The donors have been made to believe that Karamoja is a chaotic area. That is why many programmes do not reach us,” she says.

Efforts to talk to some NGOs dealing with women issues in Karamoja were futile as many of them called this a sensitive issue. “We do not solve problems in the papers,” said one aid worker with an international organisation.

The gender office in Moroto district says they have started income-generating projects like piggery, farming and money-saving schemes, financed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), to improve the lives of women.

But none of the women the writer talked to had heard of the projects.
Efforts to get a comment from UNDP’s Karamoja focal person were futile. She said: “I do not want to speculate.

We have some programmes, but I need more time to study them,” she said before hanging up.

Michael Lokiru, the Moroto district NAADS coordinator, said the Government had released sh900m for the development of modern farming in Karamoja and they were mainly targeting women.

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