STREET SIDES HUSTLES-STRUGGLES A toddler tied by her sides She sits besides Her wares of wealth In dirt not health At roadsides On streets sides Displays her piles Of fruits and veggies The tot tightly trapped And by a sheet of shuka, closer to her strapped Mincing on the dry nipples of her breasts Or an overstayed slice of bread, feasts Helps to keep it preoccupied As she goes about her business undisturbed As busy she haggles with onlookers And passing by buyers “A pile for ten, customer” she shouts “Nyanya ni nne ishirini, Mami, Uuziwe nini, Mami Ongea nami Mami Usiende nyumbani bila kitunguu Mami….” She woos a young woman “Matunda ni shilingi Kumi customer Uliza nikuuzie, ninunulie tu woi customer Nikuuzie gani customer Chagua tu customer Matunda yangu Ni fresh Leo, tena ni tamu sana!?” She beseeches and begs you It is the season of plum jams Red they becolours the street floors And busy she bends On the floors with her pile of plums flock Dusting the streets dusts with her dirty cloak Packing and piling her stock in small bowls of ten, twenty and thirty Prattling and chattering noisily, talking and shouting loudly Advertising her fruits and veggies She had wooed one plums lover A woman bends by her ruby red items And she extends to her a handful of these red jam fruits to taste “They are so sweet today, customer Taste these, customer And you will love them!” The woman asks for water She has a plastic can of dirty water on her side No one cares it source It might have been scooped and scoured Down the algae green dirty Nairobi River Water on this side of Sahara is a rare commodity She dips them deep and they are clean In her mouth one after another she minces them Separating the juicy soft succulent parts from the lone seed On the jam plums sweetness she feed She is lost to their nourishing deliciousness “Ah! Mm! they are so sweet mum A bunch of fifty pack me They are so sweet, so-o sweet in deed today!” She drops a compliment Her tongue red Her lips needing no lipstick They are succulent red And she smiles and hums over the kind words praise of her stock Mama, happy to have gotten at least one customer Bends to select for her customer the best of her stock pile And suddenly, the worst happens unwarned The meshed green plated pickup van pops up Slowly withdraws from the busy road and pulls up next to her It had slowly slid unnoticed Busy, everybody hurries to salvage her little wares Every woman quickly rises to escape the dragnet A bunch of her collections bundled and easily stashed Into a polythene bag As they starts to run, to runaway To flee from the brutal Kanju Some spills and are trampled in the stampede What a mess!!! What a loss!!! Tomatoes, oranges, mangoes, lemons, melons, onions, Yams, plums, pawpaws, peas, pineapples, potatoes Beans, bananas, green-maizes, Cabbages, kales, carrots, collards, spinaches……… All littered in the scram, Mangled, mashed, trashed and squashed in the scam It is such a mass mess, a littered loss! I pity them I am empathetic of them I sympathize with her Her stock is all gone Her silent toddler is squealing Shocked and shaken by the sudden jerking scare of peoples squalling From its Mama’s warm snuggling slumbers It is crying, crying loud As its mama hastens her limping steps Her heavy big butts trapped by the waist strapped leso Wiggling and waggling-heavily shaking As she strains and struggles to increase her pace, her speed To escape being caught and be bundled in that feared van A clubbed man pursuing her Steps behind her, she can hear his approaching steps Shaking the wet ground as he closes in on her Attacking her with the most demeaning words Hard she breaths, hard she prays To escape, to trick this tummy fat pursuer Unluckily, the gods today are not on her side He crashes on her and they all crash-land: Mother, pursuer and child In tears of pain she groans and curses and writhe As fresh blood streams from her brutal bruises But this merciless beast is still chocking her Is all over her, pinning her down to this filthy floor Unconcerned of the strapped squealing toddler Nor the wounds that blood oozes At least first aid to extend first, The wounds to address and dress first! Uncaring he places his knees on her body, back and neck Her hands he pitilessly twists backwards Her dress above her body-her womanhood is naked Fluttered and frightened by the winds of her thudding fall Amidst all these angered, berated eyes These council cursing sympathetic onlookers Unmoved on her he rest, Her chest painfully pinned between the feet battered floor Waiting, waiting for his fellow him to follow And lift this woman to the van Her wares at a distance Her buyer standing astounded All watches empathetically at this mother and child Her knees and elbows bleeding Still pleading As she is shoved into the green plated City Council Matatu And taken to their City Hall court clerks for a case to answer Woiyeh! Women on streets sides Selling their simple farm produces Going about their simple sustaining businesses Daily they have to face The heartless, ruthless, merciless council askaris wraths Like deer’s on run they have to be on the lookout-restless Lest unlucky like her-this street hawking mother and child They face the graver offence- A fine, a stockpile loss and a night in that cold cement floor! Street sides struggles! Street side hustles!
Posted on: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 09:22:08 +0000