Charcoal Sellers

Wednesday, August 31, 2006

We stop by the side of the road this afternoon to buy charcoal for our cooking needs. We are parked by a rocky slope on which some goats are tethered. It feels like a really isolated area,but nearby there are some small round huts from which children run. They gather by the roadside, calling Jambo! to us as Pete purchases several tall sacks of charcoal from a lean man on a bicycle.

Some older people join the children, including one fellow with a portable radio with a long antennae. There is a lot of chatter among the children as Vicki and some others give them some pens. One of the pens has green-coloured ink and this causes a pleasant stir.

Finally, one of the older children inquires whether we have some paper to share. I decide they probably have more need for my cheap little elephant note-book than I do and pass it down to waiting hands. The notebook is passed from hand to hand with smiles and interest.

I'm glad they like it, but I feel most peculiar that I am able to give something away that means almost nothing to me, but that seems to mean a lot to them. I feel a pang of something, I don't know, guilt? Embarrassment?

Is this how these people make their living, selling charcoal to passing campers? It must be a hard way to make a living.


The children are a friendly chattering bunch, dressed in ill-fitting clothes. I give one of them a pack of gum. Immediately a grown-up man pounces on the gum and grabs it away from the child. "It's for the children!", I say indignantly. "You have to share it!"

I doubt very much if that happened however. Too bad.