Goods and services
Goods are usually items that are tangible such as books, food, while services are activities provided by people which include doctors, barbers, and waiters.
In traditional African societies goods were distributed through camel caravans that could travel over long, arid distances carried significant amount of goods throughout the region. Other goods were loaded onto ships that sailed throughout the Mediterranean reaching Asia and Europe.
In Rift Valley, goods were distributed and exchanged through market activities, for example, the pastoral Pokot, the agricultural Pokot and the Marakwet had market activities at Chesegon village. This market is located on the territorial boundary of the Pokot and the Marakwet, sandwiched between mountains and dry plains. The main modes of transport were donkeys and humans, who used their back or heads to carry goods.
Among the Kalenjin, services offered included midwifery which was mainly offered by old women in the community. There were physicians, herbalists whose role was to give medicine to ill people. Most of those who did this were skilled and some “inherited” the skill from their ancestors and some were believed to be god-sent.
In the modern society, goods and services are the outputs offered by businesses to satisfy the demands of consumers. This is way advanced and convenient to consumers as compared to the traditional way of distribution.
Forms of labour and labour relations
In simple meaning, labour is work done by hard manual mostly done by unskilled worker. But in economics, the term labour means manual labour. It includes mental work too. In this way, workers working in factories, services of doctors, advocates, officers and teachers are all included in labour.
Cattle keeping is known to be ancient among the Kalenjin, although the real economic importance of herding is slight compared to that of cultivation among many Kalenjin groups, they all display a cultural emphasis on and emotional commitment to pastoralism.
In most communities, there are a few wage workers and full-time business persons with local clientele. It is common for young married men to be part-time entrepreneurs. Historically, women would brew and sell beer. This became illegal in the early 1980’s. Some men worked outside their communities but labour migration is less common than elsewhere in Western Kenya.
There was little traditional forms of labour and division of labour except by age and sex. Men cleared land for cultivation and there is evidence that married men and women cooperated in the rest of the cultivation process. Husbands and wives did not typically cultivate separately other than the wives’ vegetable garden.
Today women do more cultivation if their husbands are engaged in business while children are the ones who herd the cattle.
