Lives based on the “macala” trade
Veering slightly from our usual USAID/WALA irrigation project sites, Kyson, Jam, George and I paid a visit to a community that was dependent on the charcoal (“macala”) trade to survive.
Upon arriving, the chief of the village bent to shake our hands and positioned an unsteady workbench and chair for us to sit on. After a prayer and introductions, we split the group into three—charcoal producers, traders, and users—and proceeded with our bilingual interviews.
The first group were the charcoal consumers— seated in front of us were two men, two babies, and five women. Valuable information was given about their usage of charcoal, which I won’t necessarily bore you with, but essentially a 500kg bag of charcoal lasts about one month, which costs anywhere from 700 to 1200 kwacha (about $4-7 a month). During the rainy season, charcoal is scarce; which means either people cannot afford to cook or heat food, or must pay much more than many can afford.
The charcoal traders consisted of eleven women and one man (and many babies), and they explained to us how they received the charcoal to trade (mostly in placing an order with the traders, and secretly meeting to get the charcoal), the volume of bags they sell per week (about ten bags), locations, price differentiations due to season or place or quality, and what kind of trees the charcoal comes from (everything from “mwangas” to “lungwes”). They have observed that soil erosion and lesser rain have been the effects of cutting down trees.
Finally, the charcoal producers provided us with information about what tools they use (axe, panga knives, shovels, hoes), how they don’t wait for the wood to be dried completely before moving them, how one big tree makes about four charcoal bags, how sometimes they can get caught by policemen (and get fined, imprisoned, or get their teeth removed).
“Our livelihoods depend on charcoal, and when trees are finished, we will have no way of making an income,” one man pleaded. “If there is an alternative, please intervene because right now we have no means to survive when the trees are gone.”
