sharon chapter 1

Jeremiah is meeting a businessman in a coffee shop to discuss supplying electronic spares to a local supermarket. He is hoping to solve a problem with their conveyor belt. Jeremiah is trying to establish himself in business circles but faces competition. He has a plan involving a church fund and a pastor to further his financial interests. Mr. Rafiki arrives late and they begin their meeting. Mr. Rafiki wants to expand his business and needs local customers and money. Jeremiah appears successful, but his true feelings are uncertain. CHAPTER 1 EPICAL QUESTIONS WHILE SAVING HIMSELF FROM SPIDERS On Saturday, the price today of the still partially alive fly to be clawed depending on your way of looking at it was a signed agreement. The businessman had requested that Jeremiah meet him in the coffee shop. He went drunk there and some had bad intentions, fathering orphans, paying wages out of gratitude and sin, and bestowing their patronages like hotbeds of inequality and possession, or so it was assumed. The deal was regarding electronic spares that could be supplied by Jeremiah to the local supermarket whose conveyor belts had stopped. The belt had failed a few months after installation, and it was impossible to get a new one. Customers still placed their shopping on them and shuffled the ingredients along by hand, feeling hopeful about technology even though the belt didn't move. This difficulty could have been fixed by a talented mechanic, but some components could not be obtained and there was no maintenance agreement. Jeremiah had been looking for an unsolvable local problem such as this. Jeremiah was not alone in being upwardly mobile with Bashara business circles. This was usually achieved by connections through family, but for him this was not possible. There was competition everywhere, two, three, four people waiting for a job no matter how unsought of the situation. One announcement of the difficulty would lead to a crowd who had the answer. He had to be quick with his ideas, a man who would put a determined toe in the door with self-belief whether he was selling one potable stock or sat in a coffee shop buying a hypothetical. He went and straightened his clothes out in the mirror of the washroom. He used the paper towel and removed the sweat from his top lip. The temperature in the coffee shop was reasonable. There was a light scattering of people around the room, some work colleagues having brunch, a few ladies on their own looking at newspapers, relaxed-looking waitresses. Jeremiah, on the other hand, was feeling uneasy. He pushed the rent situation out of his mind and the food every week did not come cheap unless he fed his family meal. Then there was school fees needed every term for his eldest. This was the worst time of the month for speculation. Why could he not just take the pastor's money and run? It was not the first time he had thought that. It stayed in his conscience like a crocodile. He was there before the man arrived and chose to sit by the window in the corner. A few passers-by glared in, in a state of anxiety over the crossing, so jam-packed with tuk-tuks, motorbikes and cars that they had no time to notice or be privy to the secret exchanges that went on in the coffee shop on the corner of Market Street and the Miraculous Clinic. Jeremiah got his folder out in readiness to produce his crisp sheets as confirmation of the supplies that were requested and a signature of the third party, the investor, the pastor, a flamboyant churchman with whom Jeremiah had become acquainted. Jeremiah was used to slaves of hand and malleable interests. The mutually agreeable explanation he had developed with the pastor involved reallocating a church fund to develop a local business. This would in turn provide wider business and political connections for the church. The pastor had in mind something specific that could be done for the upcoming election. That part of the business did not interest Jeremiah unless facilitative to his financial interests. The pastor's church was one of many in this growing town, and each had a platform from which to operate. Mostly they had pavilion sites where the earnings were spread wide like empty mouths through the week, with an influx of chairs and people on weekends. It was an especially important, and not to be denied, heartfelt, beautiful, and spiritual conviction of most of the people that went, and yet at some point a church can become loose from its moorings like a deliberate and lamentable funeral badge intent on taking its people down with it. It depends on who is leading it and what story they decide to tell. There is true belief, and it is such a shame to waste it. On Friday, the Seventh-day Adventists ran a dawn till dusk celebratory, joyful singing session with worshippers singing passionately into the microphone and some less-practiced voices taking a fast turn. On Saturday and Sunday, in the really large and wealthy churches, when general singing was slugged, a professional paid singer took up the roll call and kept chanting worship long past everyone's remembrance of what time they would need to get up for work on Monday morning. By the time the spiritually enlightened and exhausted families split out of charge, they had enough energy for a thoughtful and usually slow walk back to where they lived. The expressions were clean and gently humorous, as a great weight had lifted off their shoulders. The dust, hurts, and frustrations of the relentless working week devotedly cried away. The rain then came as a blessing, and that was joy too. Speaking of blessings, Jeremiah had not been hopeful when he had got up, but as he ordered that tea, he was starting to feel a little bit more in control. Tea was not exception to tradition. He also requested some masiki, small doughnuts shaped like a crescent moon, for when his guests arrived. He did not touch those until he did. He could not afford to buy more. He waited. The man was late. The delay had occurred when the matatu driver waited for a further two people to sit in the front, one pressing on top of the gearstick and two adolescents in the boot with a chicken, as well as the four passengers on the back seat, one of whom was Mr. Rafiki. Despite this, Mr. Rafiki looked clean and tidy when he arrived and showed no hint of hassle. He was gentle and polite. A mom who held his family up. On entering the cafe, Mr. Rafiki had spied his potential business partner sitting in the shaded corner. Odd. What was the man doing sitting there? But he put that to the back of his mind. He clearly approached. Karibu. Jeremiah stood up to say welcome. Habari zaha subuhi? Mr. Rafiki asked Jeremiah for his news this morning, a reciprocal politeness to which they both answered, mzuri, that everything was fine and good, although far from certain. Asante sana, they said, and both sat down. Their role of gratitude was to extend it beyond things already received. It was an all-seeing insurance policy, and expressing it could protect you from all ills that could befall. It was a personal thankfulness for the water that fell fresh to the ground, the corrugated shelter you were all under when the rain came, the shoes you had bought, the red, blue, and yellow bag that sang under your window, the grasshopper sitting on the stone, the old red bag that anyone could walk on behind the back of the grand old buildings once owned by the colonialists, the fact that the dogs had not been released by the guard, the bank plaque that walked across the floor to the other bank plaque on your behalf. These were major things to be thankful for, and each man was aware of his blessings and his hopes. Thank God, and Jeremiah still had that a little. But Jeremiah had not been being grateful recently. His policy was lapsing, and a nervous, at-risk feeling crept up from his shoes. If he did not pay attention, things would slide backwards. He should thrust that horse in front of him, like that masiki, on it and eat it. If it was inside him, surely he would feel like he had won and destroyed his demons for good. There are different types of hunger in this world. If you are unlucky, you live and die with only one, the worst kind, where you have to suck thorns for comfort for the pungent stone of an unpalatable fruit. If you keep going beyond that, you acquire more types of it, till these new types drown the others in their fantastical, demanding clamor. That was why Jeremiah now required self-made luck, otherwise known as Mr. Keep Going and Master Enduring, and he was going to demand it today in the form of a profitable, secure embrace. He would not be ending up in a hole in the ground, surrounded by packing ships like that man that had lived inexplicably in a bunker outside a Catholic church. Sometimes you could see his praying hands sticking out the top of the hole, but people seemed to walk past anyway. Perhaps he had mental confusion, or was just poor? Jeremiah tried not to look confused. For a polite and savvy man, visiting directly was Mr. Rafiki's form of concealed siege. He had come in person this time, rather than sending a lesser man, because his business needed to expand, and one could not be on the back foot about that. It was Nairobi's turn to sell supplies and Bashara's turn to buy, preferably in an ongoing arrangement that involved many extras, like higher purchase rather than a few small deals. He knew he was going to get what he wanted immediately. It was a game of patience and tact. He had a flexible supply chain, but he needed local customers and a robust source of money to lubricate the wheels. The balance of power often fell to the local man, who knew the people, be they elected or not, one could need to go through him for permits including handbags and so on. You may be asking why, if he is so important and successful, did Rafiki not travel in his own car? Mr. Rafiki looked at Jeremiah some more. There was a certain shrewdness in the man's expression, and he was neatly dressed, which given the task in the town seemed a minor miracle. He had none on him, not on his eyebrows, not on his hand, not on his shoes. When Mr. Rafiki looked him in the eye, he was looking steadily back. He seemed well impressive. Jeremiah had a smartphone, which he checked before arranging his paperwork neatly on the table. Yes, Jeremiah gave off the appearance of a man who had already made it into the ranks of successful entrepreneur. Jeremiah, meanwhile, whatever his poker face said, was vigorously suspending his own doubt to deliver a smooth introduction. Inside, his doubt buckled upwards while his crocodile lay in wait for him as he surfaced. He had no training in this. He had been unable to complete school for various reasons which are too painful to mention. It was his daughter who had been able to continue her education at age 13 years and to garner her resources in the face of risk. Jeremiah's formal education had been cut off and not for want of ability. Jeremiah had been hands down the smartest in his class. He had had to take his chances alone and scrap the money to pay for everything. Funding could not be secured from the government for such as him. If funding did exist, it left out the average working man. For some reason, he could not fathom to do with foreign donors and NGO obligations. The money was often directed to women and children and now they disabled. Or whatever were the directions of the colonial, charitable, zeitgeist, pocket book of the year. All worthy causes indeed. There were criteria and many people never fitted them. Those people, always working so hard, had to watch boats of supplies and help come and go, never reaching them. So, if a man were wise, he had to learn to take his chances when they came and temporarily suspend moral judgment. With his warm palm, he grasped the man's hand. They shook firmly. The man took coffee with sugar and added milk. A sign that Mr. Rafiki had become someone. He was ostensibly disloyal to Kenya and more loyal to foreign money. Someone in the importation, exportation business because the coffee farmers sent most of their coffee abroad and people here did not drink it. Although its history was the same as tea and fruit, there were huge plantations everywhere. Tea workers still in their boxes, fruit workers now paid. They had houses built for them by their generous owners. Yet Kenyan tea was a lot more palatable and everyone had access to it. It was well stewed, grounded and had a reassuring smell like hot cow. Jeremiah's first gamble was to talk highly about his local connections and question him helpfully about the health of his family. This did not take long and established polite grounds on which to talk business. Mr. Rafiki then set out the details of his proposal, including costs. He had a plentiful supply of electrical equipment, a good notebook, good models and authentic products, not solely from the Chinese market, at a marketable price. Thus, there would be no hang-ups in supply and no errors of pricing. No individual trader would be able to offer them so competitively and to import them and to send the products themselves from Nairobi, since Mr. Rafiki's Itao Parts company was in fact securely placed and dominant, with relationships to freight and to the airport and extremely tax aware. He did not explain these details, but it related to close links with the Department of Tax, with whom Mr. Rafiki had a close personal relationship and an importation officer, and to the freight line Vance and Flores, Nairobi East and Tanzania West. Mr. Rafiki was going big in their first face-to-face conversation. Mr. Rafiki went on to detail the unique position that Jeremiah himself would then acquire being the link man, and there was potential for him to become in turn their full representative in Bashara, with a competitive salary, at which point he could then franchise out to a subcontracted team of marketing and serve agents of his own choosing. Jeremiah had said nothing. He knew he now looking at his cold, milky teeth. He had only been looking for two things. One, a photocopier for the pastor's church and two, a deal for the conveyor belt bus because he knew of at least four that had gone wrong in only one supermarket and there were another three in town. But as Mr. Rafiki had talked it up, a light in his heart began to glimmer like a light bulb, experiencing uncertain changes of current. He was not stupid. The man was underestimating him in some way with his bombastic city talk. Mr. Rafiki did not understand the slow, congealing current where there is sediment. Neither did he understand the next thing that happened when he paused to mix the sugar into his coffee. Suddenly and unreasonably, Jeremiah felt himself drift apart as his eyes saw something on the windowsill that seemed half squashed but was still using a few of its feet to wiggle. And outside the gaze of the glass, the sunshine shot through, making the moving people outside shimmer in their colors as if they were fish. He shut that image down by recreating his own spoon. He could not be seen as a plow coach, nor a country bumpkin, never as a bushman. Though his hand had become stiff and clenched from labor. Every self-respecting and self-protecting citizen had learned with light talk and most men of his age had run with their goats in the forest. He was no exception. But don't you dare ever underestimate or belittle him. He is a man of deep vision, intelligence, and knowledge. He has emerged from the quiet shade of trees into the world of fresh concrete, electrical goods, and profit for a reason. Jeremiah held it together. He was dependable, quietly, enthusiastic, and smooth. By the end of the conversation, he had pushed the piece of paper across to Mr. Rafiki, and they had both signed the summary. The men shook hands again and left. Mr. Rafiki having made his decision without asking for evidence of a business bank account already considering the options for his journey back. Meanwhile at home, Jeremiah's son, Dogo, of nine years old, had returned and gone out into the sunlight. It was holiday from school in a fortnight, and he was fantasizing already about being out in the field. Although he was going to avoid the snakes, he did not like schoolwork and was already looking forward to leaving when he was of secondary school age. Because he felt certain that his father could not possibly afford to send him there once, the church fees for him as well. It was considerate of Dogo to wish to take a more practical occupation, and earlier perhaps than his father expected. Words and rules, rulers, pencils, and diplomas were not for him. Dogo relished staring at grasshoppers. There was a lot to learn from their spotted back legs and the soaring sounds they made even when only considering their next hope. He had observed them in confusion about where to go next. Sometimes in full sunlight and when they jumped, they aired sideways in the frictional air. This was unpredictable if you were following. The grasshopper may not have known where it was going but that did not stop it singing again or scratching its legs when it hit the ground. Dogo suspected that the grasshopper knew everything, for each black dot on his leg was an extra eye.