The survival instincts inherent in man and the rather pathetic level of poverty in the country have driven people to the extremes in their bid to meet up with family responsibilities and societal obligations. However, squeezing juice out of stones to earn a living is probably as extreme as it can ever get.

This is the case of the family of Mrs Margret Ajasco who for over two decades, has sustained her family of eight resident on the outskirts of Jalingo in Taraba, literally extracting juice from stones.

Family background and generational poverty killed her dream of becoming a nurse as she never had the opportunity of going to school beyond Primary Two.

As such, the then young and ambitious Margaret had to join the subsistence farming that was the only means of livelihood in the family and neighborhood she grew up at the time.

Peer pressure and youthful exuberance as well as the drive for a ‘better life’ soon kicked in too hard and soon, she was out of the family home. She ended with her heartthrob Mr Ajasco who was a young and energetic mason at the time and had exuded everything but poverty.

After moving in together, the reality dawned on her, a little too late that not all that glitters is gold. She had to struggle to put her new and fast growing family together.

After trying her hands on so many things without much success, she resorted to stone breaking.

Ikenga Chronicles had to ask, why stone breaking?

“At the time, that was actually the end of the road for me. There was nowhere to go. I had no money and my husband had none either. The only choice was to start anything that could sustain my family and enable me save some money to start a better business. This was the only option left for me”, she responded.

And so the rigorous adventure into the stone breaking business started. Over the last two decades, Mrs Margaret has had to eck a living for her six children and husband from breaking and selling stones.

She pays her children’s school fees, provides food for the family, pay the family bill from the proceeds of the sales of stones.

But the business is not without risk. Margaret was at some point seriously injured on her leg when a stone almost destroyed her dream. She was out of action for over three months. Also, she suffers constant back and waist pain, besides her fingers all crushed at some point by the hammer she uses for her trade.

Unfortunately, the flow of business is such that it takes two to three months to sell a single trip of gravel for a profit of barely Seven Thousand Naira.

While Margaret dreams of making sure that her children are educated so as not to face her own predicament in life, that the reality of this dream has not seen the light of the day has become her daily nightmare.

It is nearly impossible to save any money to start anything meaningful as her sales are highly erratic and the proceeds barely enough to attend to basic family needs.

“I just want to see if I could get money to start a new business. I know that this is not good for myself. I am dying slowly because I do all these and hardly have anything to eat. I just wish I could start a small business that would be less demanding physically but the resources are not there”.

In as much as the challenges are daunting, Margaret is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve this one dream in life– to give her children education and ensure that their future does not turn as hers.

Unfortunately, the success of this dream seems completely out of her hands. Question is that, how long would she continue doing this present job and how possible is it that her darlings from this line of work can train her children through higher education? How long would her...

READ MORE: http://ikengachronicles.com/surviving-on-stone-juice-in-taraba/

Stone juice or stone dust.I am not understanding

The state should please empower this people with a crusher

Are there no machines that can be used to do this? This is not sustainable for her to continue manually breaking stones. I pray help comes for her.

ephi123:
Are there no machines that can be used to do this? This is not sustainable for her to continue manually breaking stones. I pray help comes for her.

The machine is called crusher

This is what I expects most of the private organization to support than Big brother Naima and other unnecessary things they supoort

sarrki:


The machine is called crusher

This is what I expects most of the private organization to support than Big brother Naima and other unnecessary things they supoort

I guess she can't afford it so she is having to do it manually. Very unfortunate.

ephi123:


I guess she can't afford it so she is having to do it manually. Very unfortunate.

Very very unfortunate

Most time if I passed through some villages I wonder what from the local government to federal are doing

You can't see any impact

Our private organization are not left out
Our religious body are even making it hard the more

sarrki:


Very very unfortunate

Most time if I passed through some villages I wonder what from the local government to federal are doing

You can't see any impact

Our private organization are not left out
Our religious body are even making it hard the more

The only other option is charities. I know in some countries they step in when the government has failed to do so. The danger with charities in Nigeria is they may accept donations from the public/corporate bodies but siphon it rather than use it for the right purpose. I wish I could connect with people like this woman.