Malindi’s poor toil to bring salt to the table

By Dann Okoth

On a clear Malindi morning, the distant drone of the ocean interspersed with the rhythmic strike of hoe on ground evokes an idyllic existence.

This faÁade of calm is peeled off by the sight of middle-aged women engaged in toil, hands and feet gloved in polythene bags to make for the missing protective clothing.

They are labourers in the salt mines that dot Magarini constituency, and their travails reflect the multi-billion-shilling sector’s inability to translate their lives into a meaningful existence.

While Magarini remains one of the poorest regions in the country, their personal tragedies offer a cry for help that has gone unheeded far too long.

Fatuma Muhambi has had four miscarriages since she started working in a salt mine in the 1990s, and what doctors linked to long exposure to raw sea salt and chemicals.

She also spots sores and rashes on her skin, possibly due to the scorching effects of the substance that she comes into contact daily during her toils.

"Doctors warned me to stop working in salt fields when I miscarried in 2001, saying it could have a link to my losing the baby but I ignored their advice. It happened again, three times, between 2003 and 2008."

Spade Of Salt

Muhumbi had little choice. Coming from Gongoni, an impoverished hamlet some 40 kilometers East of Malindi town, salt mining remains the mainstay of the local economy.

"It is not easy to withstand these conditions. Worse still, we do not know the long-term health effects," says the 37-year-old mother of six, scooping one spade of salt after another amid the sweltering midday heat and choking saline fumes.

Poverty levels in Magarini are relatively high, with nearly 66 per cent of the population living in abject poverty.

This is significantly higher than the national average of 56 per cent. Out of 210 constituencies in the country, Magarini constituency is ranked 189 in the poverty index, while Malindi constituency is in position 139.

Grinding poverty and poor health are not just the challenges facing the locals; labour unrest and ecological controversies dog the salt mines and salt factories that dot the ten-mile coastal strip.

Labour minister John Munyes said a team had been dispatched to audit safety standards at the salt factories although he did not divulge their findings.

The backbreaking job entails among other things, breaking a saltpan measuring 10 by 2.5 square metres) shovelling over four tonnes of the light grey stuff into a trough, before carrying it into a waiting tractor. This could take a week —all for a measly pay of Sh270.

Muhambi says she experienced health problems whenever she worked in the salt fields or the refinery during the early stages of he pregnancy.

"On all the occasions I miscarried, the abortions occurred either in the fourth or fifth month of my pregnancy," she adds. Incredibly, Muhambi became pregnant and delivered without a hitch whenever she stopped working in the industry.

"I had two perfect deliveries in 2003 and 2005 when I briefly stopped working in the salt mines or factory," she says.

Deformed Children

Another female salt worker from the same area has given birth to two deformed and retarded children.

Nyevu Safari Charo lives just five kilometers in Kwanyale village, on the other side of Malindi-Lamu highway. Out of her seven children, two are deformed and retarded.

"At first we thought it was some sort of a curse, but when my last born presented similar conditions, we became very worried," she recalls.

The last born, Rehema Charo is seven-years-old but looks like a two-year-old. Her head is small and deformed and she weighs barely 10 kilogrammes at the last clinical assessment, and convulses a lot. She cannot talk.

"Whenever we take her to the doctors, they tell us she is underweight and that her bones are underdeveloped. They advise us to give her lots of milk and calcium-based foods."

The second lastborn is 12-years-old but resembles a seven-year-old. She just joined Standard One, but teachers complain she can hardly cope with her lessons.

The girl also sports a very small and deformed head. She is sad and withdrawn. Doctors say she requires special care and meals.

"What we both earn from our casual jobs at the salt firm is hardly enough to afford three square meals a day—affording a special diet for two is beyond us," says the father, Japheth Charo.

Eighty-nine-year-old Mwakeshi Mwangura escaped salt mining early in life but drove a tractor transporting the stuff for a local salt company for 46 years from 1953 till last year.

But the granny is not enjoying life in retirement after coming down with what appears like a cancerous ailment.

"I develop swellings all over my body, which burst, releasing nasty smelling pus and septic wounds," he says.

Young Nelson Shida from Gongoni complains that a routine at the salt fields often leaves him exhausted and sick.

Packets Of Milk

"I’m often too tired to do anything else, besides a experience a tight chest and I’m forced to drink two packets of milk everyday, which is too expensive for me," he says.

Several of the workers have had their fingers or limbs chopped off as they work in the factories.

According to a study conducted by the non-governmental organisation Institute for Law and Environmental Governance (ILEG), community members who work in the salt mines complain that their health has been negatively affected.

"Skin rashes, sores as well as the development of abnormal growths is common," says the report, published last year.

"Chemicals used in the factory to process salt seem to have an abortifacient effect (induce abortion) since women who work there during their first trimester of pregnancy often miscarry," the report adds.

The report noted that fingers of some women working on the sealing machines have been chopped off, adding that the companies offer no protective clothing to employees.

Dr Jaochim Osur, a leading gynecologist says while salt has many chemicals that could affect pregnant women in one way or another, the unfolding scenario in Magarini needs further investigation.

Dr James Machoki of the Department of Obstetrics at the University of Nairobi concurs.

"Once this is done the dangerous chemicals will be isolated, which will enable us to put the miscarriages into perspective," he says.