Ajifa

e whole deadspot of Dhekina, it is the one place that truly makes me feel happy a

one trying to play their parts well because if you don’t, you

weave through the myriad of people and colors, going and coming, crammed in the space between shops and sell

e chop tw

market, I have developed a signature tone that helps me stand out from the other sellers and makes my customers recog

s who sell them, mostly men, dressed in single colored robes made from a thin material from the looks of it. Some

eir goods, especially not a hawker, who cannot pay back. Probably even won’t let me go if I can’t; I think. I don’t blame them for behaving this way, after all a mill

s is the best, young hawkers following buyers with their goods even though they looked uninterested and the women who harmonize their voice, calling out “better paper yams here,” but I am not drawn in. Doing so will make me “loo

charged is almost the amount I make daily and even if it was as cheap as the leaf wrapped okpa I sell at three kobo each, I know my auntie still wouldn’t give me the money to pay. So every day I sneak int

oes, fresh and rotting, takes the air as I walk into where perishable foods are sold. The women who sell

y smoked fish is the bes

tomatoes, see a

king this Akpu ehn, I will su

ijeoma lets her daughter be the face of her business, to lure customers and then she deals with them herself. it works so well she has become a topic of gossip and rude remarks among the other tomato sellers and even am

omeone ccal “Mé okpa.” I turned towards where the sound came from, responding to what is basically

.” I g

he fine patterns drawn on her skin, to the well shaped buba she wears, to the beautifully patterned wrapper

and which is poor. The people who live in the baraks are the rich ones outside the wall though. They comprise of a Amana families pushed out to accommodate deeper pocket

he business of deluding themselves that they are not kele. But everybody knows

e the woman looking frail, Carrying a basket filled with goods the woman must have bought. I can tell instantly that

woman asks in an exaggerated

le in

st five K

okpa?” the woma

away immediately makes me know that

I say. Go and ask for

the space between us is soon filled with the enticing smell that gives assurance of great taste. Once the woman takes in the sce

e five,”

can tell she knows okpa don’t sell for five Kobo per wrap. I give her a small smile of my own. She would probably look back to this moment when she is being starved or served the scraps of the table and find comfort knowing a girl Like her, o

e the girl with the basket one last glance and turn away, knowing what had just happened was largely

doesn’t seem like a dream anymore. With only one okpa left for me to sell, I call out my Hawking phrase and anyone listening can hear

ther way. The joy that warms my chest balls into apprehension and drops into my stomach. Before I can choose what to do next , a firm hand grabs hold of me and I turn t

for the piece of cloth given to hawk

e noticed my

down and dropping the pot for my head w

I am not counting on that. I slip my hand into the pot once it’s resting on the ground. I

mands. My heart hammers as I search frantically for the okpa, then my hand locates

ake my chance and throw the hot wrap at his face, bite his hand that holds me and I grab my pot without waiting to see the guards react

rom behind me “catch that girl.”

to squeeze through. I run and run, attaching no sense of direction to myself, I just run. People shout insults at me as I bump into some of them but I do not stop. When I finally do, it feels

y it is because Amana go there personally to buy expensive clothing, books and things that make their animals talk. The way to the right is a way I hav