The day was drowning fast into the dust and noise of the evening when I first saw her. This was as I danced, turning my body in a slow circular motion. The taxi was pulling in at the stage just ahead. In front of where it stopped were two traffic officers dressed in all white but a slightly dirty white. She was gripping her bag tightly to her chest with one hand as she got off and paid the taxi conductor with the other. She raised her head to look straight ahead to where I was. I know she stopped but I was turning away and her frame was fading. I hear repeated car horns and boda boda cyclists were already flooding this part of the road that obviously heads to home. She must be walking toward me, whoever she is, past the seasonal pineapple sellers trading from the back of an old Toyota pick-up. The left-over groaning from lunch time hunger did nothing to dour the sweet smell from dripping pineapple juice.
There she is again, at the edge of the boda boda stage. She’s coming closer, walking absent mindedly. A rider suddenly turns his motorcycle, rounding her from the back and blocking her procession. She knows him because he says something and she smiles and shakes her head and he attempts to ride away through a small gathering of people, off to scout for another willing passenger. I can imagine their brief exchange.
‘Sista tugende?’
‘ah ah today let me stretch ko my legs.’
He must be a trusted cyclist. People in zone 8 trust cyclists to run errands.
This evening sounds different. I hear the sounds from the strings of endingidi and definitely a short hand held drum. She does too. It was obvious where the sound was coming from because a group of curious observers had surrounded the musical entourage. She joined them.
On a makeshift wooden platform that runs across a dirty, narrow drainage with blackened water, was a short man in a night cap with pants folded to the ankle and torn just above the fold. He wore dusty shoes that were pointed at the front tip. It’s the most he should get out of me. He sang in an exaggerated soprano voice and played the endingidi. He was comical too, he got points for that, swaying his head and motioning (more description) his fake puffed butt towards the audience. Squatting to his far left was another man who beat the drum. He was a little more decent in a thread bare shirt and washed out shorts that could have come from the Friday market day. Drummer man, we called him, barely looked in the direction of the