All of the repatriated refugees shared something in common when they arrived in Ndego: they all desperately missed milk. Milk was the life force for many back in Tanzania, where they made their livelihood from raising cattle and selling milk.
When the repatriates first arrived in Rwanda, there were a few major adjustments. First, they had to learn cultivate the land as they had neither the space nor the resources to raise cows. Second, since there are no cows, there is also no milk – a main staple of their diet when they were in Tanzania.
So when a milk association formed in Ndego in May of 2008 and began selling milk, people were comforted by a taste they had been missing in their lives for over a year.
“I’m so happy I could give milk to my children again,” said Flora Nyabutono, a member of the milk association.
Flora Nyabutono preparing the milk
There are 20 women involved in the milk cooperative. Every day, a rotation of three women operates the milk bar: one walks to a nearby farm to purchase the fresh milk, another pasteurizes the milk and prepares the jugs the milk is served in, and the other cleans up.
The women at the milk bar carry on the same method of preparation and serving of milk as they practiced in Tanzania. Before pouring each serving into the one-litre wooden jugs, they first treat each of them with the smoke of a grass-like herb. They burn the stalks and let the smoke rise into the opening, infusing the wood with a smoky scent a hint of which is passed on to the milk.
Nearby, another association makes a sweet offer that’s hard to refuse.
19-year-old Deo Muangwa describes how he got into the honey business.
“We chose to make honey because it’s easy to produce. To raise cows, you always have to chase after them but for bees you just put the hive in the forest and the bees come.”
Deo said that the first harvest of honey yielded about 20 litres, half of which he sold in Ndego and the rest in a neighbouring locality.
Most of the 20 people who make up the honey association didn’t know the first thing about making honey before arriving in Rwanda.
“When we got here, there were many people from different areas. We found out that some people knew how to do make beehives, take care of the bees and extract the honey. They taught us how to do it,” said Deo.
Deo Muangwa tends to homemade beehive
The success of both of these small business ventures depends on maintaining a local market for the products or even finding a way to ship them to nearby localities.
