Cup o' tea please

Every day at the World Relief office at around 10am I am brought a thermos of piping hot tea.  Nido (Blog to come on this powdered milk product) and sugar are also provided.  My inner Kenyan adds a healthy amount of Nido and sugar so that my tea swirls into a creamy, sugary delight.  My thoughts regress to the days of RVA and chai time after chapel. 

"Now if only I had some chai treats to go with this..." 

Tea has been such a integral part of my African experience.  Britain did a great job of bringing this "culture" of tea drinking to Africa. I don't think I remember a single day in Zimbabwe when we didn't have a cup of tea and biscuits at around 4 o'clock!  Kenya never stood a chance, with influences coming from both Britain and India!  The latter we have to thank for masala chai!  In fact, most of the tea that Burundi exports goes to the docks of Mombasa where it is auctioned off weekly.

According to a recent Reuters article Burundi's tea exports have brought in over $11.6 million from January 2008 to September 2008! This is a huge increase from last year.  Tea is Burundi's second largest foreign hard currency earner after coffee and employs 300,000 small holder farmers.  The government would like to increase production and quality over the next year.  

My prayer is that the revenue from these exports will be used in ways that benefit the people of Burundi.  I am not much of an economist, but I think that having a economy that is based in just coffee and tea is not the safest.  Yes, I took two classes in economics, but we never talked about anything practical.  That would have been too easy, right? (note: tones of bitterness from college)

I wonder where my old chai mug went?