Iringa Hope visits 2013: Magubike – Our Last Out Of Town Visit

Today we went to Magubike – our last out of town visit! Magubike is a relatively new parish (it was created from a preaching point of Kidamala in 2008) that does not have a partner parish in the US. This year, through the generosity of Dr. David Klevan, they are going to have a SACCOS. Asante sana!

We started our journey by driving over to the Mkimbizi bus stop to pick up Peter, Margaret, and Pastor Ambrose Mwakikoti from Mkimbize. Itiweni is not going with us today since she has to get ready for our training class next week.

To get to Magubike you go out of Iringa on the Ruaha road. It is about a 45 minute drive down this road to the turn off. Once you take the turn it is straight ahead for most of the rest of the way.

When we arrived in Magubike we were greeted by a group of members singing and dancing. Pastor Nyadwike was there to greet us, smiling and clearly very happy. Tom spied some “corn children” running in and out of the corn field so he went over to give them some candy. There was a sign here from the Agricultural Institute at the university– it was the first we had seen – very good guys! The sign gives the type of seed, when it was planted, etc. It was looking good.

Before chai with the pastor we sat down together to learn a little about the congregation and the community. This congregation has 400 members – 250 adults and 150 children. The cash crops here are maize, sunflowers, and tobacco. Most of the farmers in the congregation farm 2 to 3 acres. A few farm up to 10 acres. Most of them are getting 4 bags an acre for an income of about $250-300. Like so many others they would like to follow the CVP plot approach they have learned, but capital is short.

Tom asks some questions about capital. It turns out that there are some micro lenders here in town. The problem for these farmers however is that the micro loans are being fed through the larger tobacco farmers in the area. These farmers then “bind’ the smaller farmers to them so that they wind up raising crops for them. When the crops are sold these farmers pay off the loans which include their tractors and other equipment which the small farmers do not use, then divide up the rest. The result is that the small farmers either cannot get any capital or they effectively get a very low price for their crops.

There is also a SACCOS in town. In fact, the chairman of that SACCOS joined us at the pastor’s house for chai. He is very interested in joining an Iringa Hope SACCOS. We questioned why they wanted to start another SACCOS and learned that there are many problems with the existing one. First, you can take a loan for anything you want – so much of the money is tied up in homes and motorcycles. And you must be married to belong to the SACCOS. Since many of the women are widowed or their husbands are gone they cannot get a loan. You also must be over 30 and under 60 – so many of the farmers are not eligible for this reason either. Furthermore, one must be a village resident – which means that most of this parish cannot join anyway (our SACCOS will include a large area including the town). Finally, the loans are usually at 4-5% per month with monthly payments required – not very helpful for a farmer who plants and then waits 4 months for his income to ripen. The pastor told us that there are 150-200 people who want to join a new SACCOS.

When we got to the church for the meeting there were 49 people waiting for us. We introduced ourselves and gave a few remarks, then turned the meeting over to Peter who conducted a class on SACCOS. Many questions and remarks followed. “Is it true that we, and not the church, will own this SACCOS?” (Yes) “Can anyone join?” (Yes, as long as they are trustworthy) “Is it true that we can wait to pay until we sell our crops?” (The terms are up to the members so you can decide this.) “How can we join this SACCOS?” (Peter told them they had to form one first – he then told them how to do this.) The chairman of the village SACCOS then stood up and said he wanted to join an Iringa Hope SACCOS. There were a number of other people who joined him in this.

When we made our closing remarks Sandy referred to two previous speakers from the audience who had said this would be such a gift – first because the interest rate was only 2% a month, and second because it would allow young and single people to join. She reminded everyone that their SACCOS is a “gift that keeps on giving.”

When we were finished the pastor asked us to wait for awhile because they had something to say. (Someone had gone to fetch gifts for us). No one was saying anything and the church seemed strangely quiet. Sandy asked the pastor if this was the point where everyone breaks into song and with a cue from the pastor, everyone did. Soon there was a group dancing in the front of the church. When the gifts arrived the singing and dancing ceased, the gifts were presented and we said our good-byes.

Before we left Tom met with the “machine committee” for awhile. He explained a business plan to everyone. There is a committee that wanted to borrow money to buy a machine to make sunflower oil. Their idea is to make the oil locally and then sell it. They think that by shipping the oil instead of the seed they will make more money. The idea seems to have merit, but it does not seem like they have considered all of the issues.

The group had a lot of questions; first, about how to plan a business and make it pay. The questions are good and show that they are ready to think about it some more. Then they started asking if maybe they can just borrow the money to buy a machine. Tom told them that they have to think of it as starting a business, not buying a machine. They need to think of what building they would put it in, how much it would cost to hook it up, etc. There was some discussion of whether or not the church could buy one – but they could not answer the question of who would then run it and sell the oil, hire some workers, etc. Finally everyone agreed that if they wanted a business that would help the community and make money they needed to have the SACCOS own and run it.

As we left they were discussing how to develop some of the details they will need for a business plan. Tom promised that if they wanted help someone from the university would help them. They are hoping to have a plan done and ready to look at in August or September.

As we left it started to rain. We hadn't driven very far before we encountered our first traffic jam of the day – goats! There was a large herd of goats coming down the road in the rain driven by two small boys. About half way back to Iringa we came across our second traffic jam of the day – kids! School was out and there were hundreds of kids walking down the road. Despite the traffic jams we still were home before 4:00 – good thing because we have a radio show tonight - our last trip out of town in “the beast.”

We think it was over heating on the way home, but none of the gauges work, so we were only guessing, judging from the smell coming from under the hood.