You tell me to turn into the oncoming corner of Nyamwezi Street. I’m too late to react and drive past the dirt road sparsely packed with cars. As I slow down, a blaring horn goes off behind me. A daladala overtakes me like a raging train as it speeds off on Uhuru Street to pick up early morning passengers.
I mumble my apologies and tell you about another road ahead that I know about. After all, Kariakoo’s roads are linked together like a chain of spiderwebs. The narrowest of spiderwebs. Everywhere is usually cramped with tiny minivans and trucks unloading their cargo and oblivious pedestrians who don’t seem to fear death and walk right on the roads. It’s the courage you get when you’re exposed to Kariakoo. It has its ways of toughening you up, either by getting you into a swearing contest with a bus conductor or making you haggle for everything you buy.
The road I turn onto leads to a pharmacy where I usually pick up orders. It’s a tiny shop with misaligned shelves of drugs lined up next to a panel of the loudest telephone calls I have ever heard and the clicks of ancient mechanical keyboards. The owner is a slender Indian with a greedy look in his eye and the fastest cash counting hands. Whenever a customer steps in, his first question is never how the day is going but how much money is due. He must have a thing for Muslims because his entire female staff is always seen with hijabs. It’s like a pharmaceutical cult of screwing up orders and slacking off. Outside of the tiny pharmacy, the street cleaners are busy sweeping piles of black sand and putting up safety cones. It feels surprising to know there are actual cleaners for this market on account of it being the second dirtiest part of the city. The canals are usually teeming with black goo and discarded plastic.
Today, however, feels different. For one thing, the sun has barely risen. However, it’s a normal occurrence for you. These days, you’re earlier than the sun to rush off in the service of patients. I am here with you today for shopping. I rarely come with you on these occasions. Bonding time? Perhaps. I freely park the car in an empty slot, compulsively lock all the doors, and follow you off into the streets.
You ask me where I got the CDs from. Not whether I have ever seen the sunrise with you. Truth be told, I can’t recall where the store was. This whole market is just one store copying another and trying to survive. That and the creeping melancholy gnawing away at my memory. Trying to remember the last two weeks becomes a mental strain. Either way, I point out the street in the hopes that my mind isn’t lying to me.
We skim past Lindi Street and turn onto Msimbazi Road, where the morning traffic cruises by. The path ahead of us is blocked by two muscular peasants strenuously pulling their mikokoteni filled with peanuts. These are the true fighters of this place, for they fear no one on the road, not a wreckless driver or a businessman. Of course, they do not test their chances, but occasionally they may cross over with an oncoming bus just to get their daily cents for bread. Overtaking the mikokoteni, I lead you past Kipata Street and stop at the faded-out zebra at an intersection leading back to where we came from. The overhead traffic lights are working today. After six seconds of waiting, the green light flickers back to life. A red 60s Volkswagen Beetle screeches to a halt as we cross over to Aggrey Street and turn left into one of the dozen shopping complexes. The hallway of the complex is lined with tiny retail shops selling phones and accessories. My memory is starting to clear out as I see a familiar shop boasting a sale of new Android phones. Maybe a deal, maybe a steal. We reach the end of the hallway that leads out onto the next street. It’s flooded with sewage water from an unfinished construction. We turn left and continue on the narrow-raised steps to the end of the line, where my memory stops. In front of me is a building with a neon sign indicating an electronics store, but it is closed. A look of disappointment instantly appears on you before quickly evaporating.
You direct me to follow you as you head off back onto Masai Street. I quickly cross over the rocky path just as beat-up lorry whizzes right past me. You are already past two stores and near the entrance to another shopping complex, leaving me to run just to catch up. It isn’t your first time around these twists and turns. Or maybe it’s simply a child’s presumption that his father knows everything about the world and a father keen to show his resilience. I can see it now, behind those tired, yellow eyes.
Read – Ignorance is Bliss – A Short Story by Rodney Nayo, Ghana
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