Confused was the best word with which I
could describe her. Since it was a lazy morning, I let my eyes follow her until
she came to stand before the woman I was making my purchases from.
‘Mo fe Rodo’, She said to the apparently
impatient trader.
Her response was quick. “I don’t have
rodo’ and she concentrated on attending to my needs.
The young girl did not move away. She
stared like she was uncertain about something or had another request to make.
She looked around the fairly crowded market before she turned to the tomato
seller.
‘Please ma, where is the butcher? Is he
not going to come today?’ she asked in quick succession.
The trader was apparently was irritated
by now and told her off. ‘How am I supposed to know the butchers whereabouts’,
she screamed at the young girl.
I continued to look at the girl. The
look that resulted from the trader’s scream was devastating. She could not have
been more than fourteen. I could tell that she hated to shop in an open market.
Do not ask me how. I have been there too.
I hated to be in an open market when I
was growing up. However, with the kind of mother I had, that was not an option.
My mother felt that all her children must be comfortable in an open market,
being female meant I had to take the informal tutorials she set before me
seriously. Her feelings did nothing to change how petrified I was about an open
market. I used to wonder why we could not get all we wanted in the super
markets around us. I hated to haggle and proficiency in the market was
determined by how much one could haggle and in my teens I did not think I had
it in me. Infact, I still do not have it in me. I consider it a plus that
thanks to the woman who raised me, I did not dread going to the market as I
used to years back. In those days, going to the market was the major reason why
I loathed Saturdays. The little snacks that followed shopping did little to
ease the irritation.
Hmmn! Those were the days. As I look
back, I raise more than my thumb for the woman who did not take note of all my
useless wimps, wimps which if noticed would have only made me close to
incomplete for the roles life threw at me today.
The girl looked at the trader again and
asked if a particular meat seller would be at the market that day. The trader
went into abuses. I had my tomatoes and peppers into my nylon bag and walked
away from the scene. Weekend needed to continue and my staying at the stall was
not helping the little girl and aside from the income it provided, not helping
the trader too.
As I walked homeward I thought about my
kids yet to come. I wondered how I will get them to like shopping in an open
market. I have lost all clues of how the woman that raised me worked her own
magic. Or maybe trends would have changed by then and goods displayed in the
open market would have their prices stated in a way that haggling would be cut
off and I will just rely on school curriculum to teach them the rudiments of bargaining.
Well, only time would tell how things would turn up.
Keep faith.
