He had rags on. I would call them rags because I’m privileged and the privileged do not know the value of a few strips of cloth on a laborer’s back. He was haggling over a bunch of bananas, old bananas – yellow pus. The bananas stayed unbought. They probably sighed in relief in a banana way. He left to mount his bike and dropped a 100 Dalasi note – a few milliliters of his laborer’s sweat. Another man, a hawker similarly dressed, saw the note drop. He left off tying an umbrella on a pole over his ware (the sun can bake your skull into innovation). He picked up the note. There was the usual look in his eye; flickering shadows; want; hunger; years of degrading poverty and futile toil. He looked at the note and it whispered at him “some meat in the stew”. His heart whispered. He looked up into the sun bleached sky as a dragon fly zoomed past. His wife would’ve been happy. But he called out and gave the note back.
Few are those who persevere on the path of integrity in the face of great want.
