Near to Maua town, khat trees are usually found on the hillside. Here, the khat trees which looks like shrubs, and can reach up to five meters, enjoy a very favourable climate.

In typical rural wooden houses, fruit trees and vegetables are cultivated in the garden, and the harvest sold at the nearby market. Farmers usually have a cow, for the milk, a few chickens for the eggs and the meat. Often, people also grow a few khat trees (miraa trees) which can be a good source of generating incomes.

Herbert Kamundi, 37, lives on the on the heights of Maua town, one kilometre from the city centre, and he is a miraa farmer. He grew up here, in this hilly region, with fertile grounds, which touches the equator line. Recently, he inherited a small field where grows around 200 khat trees. Every day, he collects the stems which are highly appreciated by the Khat consumers.

Sometimes, his neighbours and his relatives help him to collect the branches. The will makes some 500 grams’ packs; they will sell to the wholesalers in town during the evening. Together, they collect 30 kgs every two weeks.

“When I chew, I feel very comfortable”. Every day, Herbert chew from 5 pm to 10 pm. The khat consumption is a very long process as it is needed to chew for several hours to keep the effects which are a mix of excitation and euphoria. With his friend Mungathia, his friend, a teacher in high school, they drink tea and eat peanuts to make the khat chewing easier. Both of them are not chewing during the day and are keeping it for after work.

After enjoying is breakfast, Herbert is getting ready to work. Behind him, a poster with an idealised family, who gathers in a vast leaving room. The money he makes from harvesting khat is helping him taking care of his daughter and wife, who works as a hairdresser.

Herbert’s neighbour is enjoying her tea after spending a morning working in her field. Her husband past away, but with her children, they cultivate the land they have. Like Herbert and her neighbour, most of the farmers and landlords are Christians, from the “Meru” tribe. For the Meru people, of Bantu’s origins, khat is part of their traditions.

Some farmers are returning to their village after spending the morning collecting khat branches. Later on, they will make some small packs with the khat they harvested.

This 18 years old young boy is collecting the khat from the field of the traditional chief of his village. For each pack he makes, he will receive 25 Kenyan shillings (0,25 us$).

A group of young men are gathering every day to clean the khat which they collect earlier in the morning. Once in small packs, they will be able to sell each of them 200 Kenyan shillings (2 us$).

In Maua town, some women are selling packs of miraa (khat) they have collected. In Maua town, khat is very cheap, and most of the people consume it. Here, traditionally, when a man asks for the hand of a lady, he has to offer a pack of khat to his father in law, which is a sign of respect. However, traders are mostly Kenyan Muslim or Muslim of Somali origins, and outside of the Meru county, most of the consumers are Muslim from Kenya or Somalia.

In the parking of the Maua Methodist hospital, a sign is indicating that chewing on the premises is forbidden. The Methodist church is significant in this part of Kenya, as the first mission opened in Meru town (the capital of the district) in 1912.

Every afternoon, on the main street of Maua town, Muslim preachers and pastors from different evangelical church are debating about religion. One of the dwellers is carrying a pack of khat he just bought.

Wycliffe, 22, studies in the city of Kisumu, in the western part of Kenya. His grandfather, a polygamous traditional chief, has given to each of 43 sons a piece of land to cultivate. When Wycliff’s father passed away, he inherited from his land where khat trees grow. Many times a year, he employs daily workers to help to harvest his field. In two weeks of harvest, he can expect to get up to 2,000 us$. These incomes help to finance his studies and to take care of the rest of his family. Recently, he caught some thieves stealing from his field. The local police are used to this issue. The thieves, whom Wycliff knows, had to compensate him with 3,000 shillings (30 US $) in order to avoid going to jail. Stealing khat from other is very common in Maua.

To avoid having thieves coming in their fields, some farmers call for the services of witchcraft doctors, which can do some mystic rituals to protect the khat trees. Once the field protected, a red thread is placed on the treetop to indicate to thieves not to penetrate the area, or they could be bewitched. Even though a considerable part of the population is Christian, animism belief is also very important, and the fear of being bewitched is an efficient way of discouraging potential thieves.

Paul is 87 and is Wycliff’s grandfather and has forty-three sons and eight wives. He is posing with his traditional hat made out of colobus monkey. Unlike most of the people in Maua, he never consumed khat. According to many people from Maua, khat cannot be a drug as it comes straight from the tree.

In Meru town, every evening people gather in shops and bars to enjoy chewing some khat. To make it easier to chew, they drink some coffee.

Like in many kiosks in town, packs of khat can be bought. Even though the business went a bit down when the British government decided to ban the khat on its territory, the future seems to be promising. There are more and more consumers in Nairobi and Somalia. In Maua, some khat farmers are planting more trees which will harvestable in the next three years.

At a tax barrier, on the outskirt of the town, a tax controller is waiting for jeep full of khat to pass. This business is one of the primary sources of tax, as every jeep which leaves Maua has to pay 1,000 Kenyan Shillings (10 us$) to the Maua district. According to a tax collector, following the 2014 UK ban, some local people, like him, started to chew khat in order to sustain the local economy “If your country depends on tourism, and from one day to the other, foreign tourists are not coming anymore, local tourism has to replace them in order to have a prosperous economy”.

The leaves and branches can dry very quickly and therefore, are chewable only for a few days. The transport of khat to the place it will be consumed is an incredible logistic challenge. Every evening, jeep, loaded with the khat harvested during the day, speed to Nairobi, where it is consumed by the Kenyan or the Somali diaspora, whereas a significant amount of this khat is also sent to Somalia by plane. It will reach the Mogadishu's market the following day.