Could i at my childhood been what today is considered as a victim of CHILD LABOUR along with some children with whom i was growing up at the periurbans of Kisumu town. As i have said here many times.my home is barely a mile away from kisumu stadium. In the 60s the stadium was a beehive of activities such as the GOSAGE,which was an annual east african athletics meet for which athletes like Nyandika Maiyoro from Kisii and Antao,an athlete of asian origin were the famous champions of the time. Among the footballers of the time was Peter Oronge the only one whose name i can remember todate. At the same stadium i too remember Russian Accrobatics many times coming to perform during the construction of kisumus russian hospital in the 60s. The name russia which was adopted for football stands both in kisumu and nairobi originated at that time. Those days the only place with a large number of hawkers was at the stadium where they would sell roasted groundnuts,sweets,gurbit,and cigarettes. A tenant at my home named Ngore was one such hawker and on days of any tournament at the stadium,he would give each one of us a tray full of sweets,groundnuts and cigarettes to hawk to spectators at the stadium. We were barely thirteen years old at that time and i remember at the end of the football matches selling as much as ten shillings worth, we would be given a few sweets and sometimes 20cts as the days pay for hawking around the stadium. During school tournaments we would still be used as hawkers. As we grew older we developed the need for more than just twenty cents and started to be indepent by selling scrap metal to supplement our meagre income from stadium sales. From scrap metal, we could earn as much as 5shs or more. As we become more aware of what money could do, some of the children even started accompanying older boys to the estates at night to steal from peoples houses. A number of the children left school and started working for indians in shops and as domestic workers. Some stowed away to nairobi by train and buses
Posted on: Fri, 05 Jul 2013 03:47:38 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015