It Happened on the Way to War Read Free Page A

first threat.
    â€œNow I’m doing nothing,” she continued. “I tell you I’m doing nothing because I don’t have money. If you want to sell sukuma wiki [collard greens], you have to have money.”
    â€œYou want to sell sukuma ?” Collard greens, cabbage, and tomatoes were staple vegetables. They could be purchased for a pittance at nearly any turn in the slum.
    â€œYes, I can, if I can get money to start purchasing the sukuma .”
    â€œWhat would your plan be?” It struck me as a bad idea to become another seller in such a crowded market.
    â€œI can’t compete in the slums. Here they won’t pay. If you have the money, you go to different areas. You know, Kibera is a slum. Once you have a little money, there is Eastleigh, Huruma. You can choose such areas where residents, they have a little bit of income. Isn’t it?” Eastleigh and Huruma were lower-income areas notorious for their high murder rates and levels of gun violence.
    â€œWhat would you do?” I asked. “Purchase a place to sell it? That might cost as much as seven thousand shillings.” It was about $100 at the time.
    â€œEven that’s too much. You know me, the life I’m living, you can’t talk of such money.”
    â€œIf you had fifteen hundred shillings, how would you do it?” In my time in Kibera I hadn’t given out any money, but I wanted to do something for her and with her.
    â€œThen I choose the place. Like now, a sack of sukuma is twelve hundred. Now if I go and purchase this one sack, I know I’d have a balance of three hundred. Now this three hundred, let me assume that fifty shillings is for the people who carry it from one place to where you sell it. And then I keep the rest for transport to Eastleigh.”
    â€œYou think it can work in Eastleigh?” I was impressed by her detailed understanding of costs.
    â€œYes, it can. Obviously I’ll do it, because there are people who have money and there the police don’t come down on you for not having the hawker’s (vendor’s) license. You know that thing, I can’t afford. A hawker’s license can cost you five thousand. So if I go to Eastleigh with my plans, obviously I’ll succeed. I’ll sell my sukuma .”
    â€œHave you talked with anyone who’s succeeded?”
    â€œI’ve known many, very many,” her voice rose. “What we’re crying out for is money.”
    â€œSo you could start off tomorrow if you had money?”
    â€œIf God gives me today, tomorrow, the twenty-ninth of June in the year of our Lord 2000, I’ll be on the track.”
    â€œThe track to success.”
    â€œYes, I’m telling you the track to success.”
    Spontaneously, I unzipped the secret holding area in my canvas belt and pulled out two folded-up thousand-shilling notes, $26. “Then the track begins today.”
    Tabitha looked at me and took a deep breath. “God bless you. I know I’ll work with it and it’ll be something. I’ll even mail you. I’ll tell you how my business is going.”
    â€œ Sukuma wiki! ” I pumped my fist in the air.
    â€œI’ll push the wik ,” she responded, laughing for the first time that day. Sukuma means “to push,” and wik is an abbreviation of w iki, or week. Residents joked about “pushing the week” when they could only afford to eat collard greens.
    I had purchased eleven kangas as gifts for friends in the United States. The brightly colored sheets with Swahili aphorisms were used as dresses, sachets, baby wraps, wall decorations, and room dividers. I reached into my bag and handed one to Tabitha. The kanga was deep purple with bright orange splashes and crisscrossing, black and white lines. Tabitha unfolded it and held it in front of her, inspecting its rich colors and crisp texture. She gasped as she read its aphorism, which was in a deep Swahili that I