The Market (Soko) Essays I Wrote In Primary School
Even though I never went to any of them
I never understood why teachers always wanted to get the tales of our market-day misgivings.
If it wasn’t in Swahili, it was in English.
In Swahili, it was: Siku Ya Soko
English: Market Day.
At the time, I only knew of supermarkets. Even then, we would only go to these large stalls to get house supplies, which was not that interesting to a child. Securing a chocolate bar — like Fudge or Mint-Choc — was the goal. The rest could be forgotten.
But I had a wild imagination. Luckily, I could put words together to make a coherent sentence. Spiced up with a few metaphors and similies here and there. No mean feat. I’m a survivor.
Asking a boy like me, who would roam the streets of Kayole and Komarock, to write an essay about a memorable market day was stretching my abilities.
I remember once scoring 37/40 in a Kiswahili essay (Insha), about the same topic. Furthermore, I was the highest in class, albeit never attending any of the markets I mentioned.
It never registered in my mind that I could write about the moments I got lost in Mutindwa, early morning visits to Gikomba, or evenings at Kona Mbaya, but those would paint a bad picture. To the teachers, I was an obedient child. They would never imagine I would walk from Kanisani to Kona Mbaya so that I could get hand-sized mangoes for half the price.
Or that I’d wake up early in the morning and walk to Gikomba to get some of the best soccer boots at throwaway prices.
Or that I’d talk of how I bargained an item at Eastleigh to the point of feeling like I was openly robbing the seller. I learned that from my mother, by the way.
These were not the kind of stories our teachers wanted from us. They wanted us to find the perfect balance between obedience and interest.
Well, obedience and interest are practically opposites. Somehow, though, we managed to write these essays. Summarised, here are some of them.
In the village
I’d often travel upcountry with my mother and siblings. To Uyoma or Kano, for reasons I never knew. I only knew we were travelling and that we’d have French fries for supper. I longed for those nights.
As a child, your priorities are skewed. You never looked forward to market days. You’d just go and get what you were instructed to buy.
Furthermore, you never imagined writing a list of what you were sent. You’d just run while chanting what you were asked to get.
Mchele
Sukari quarter
Mkate nusu.
Maziwa mbili.
You could even create a song to remember these items. But by the time you’d get to the shopkeeper, it would be:
Mchele quarter
Sukari mbili
Mkate
Maziwa nusu.
Teachers would never want us to share such essays with them.
So we talked of how we woke up early in the morning, at the crack of dawn, when the sun rays started to percolate through our bedroom curtains. And how the wafting aroma of freshly baked bacon floated from downstairs to greet our morning nostrils.
All false.
I had never seen a storey house by then. Neither did I know how bacon smelt. I only pictured Shaggy and Scooby-Doo floating toward the kitchen. These cartoons too, were not supposed to feature in our stories.
Marks were awarded for creativity.
We’d then prepare and start the long trip to go to the market.
*coughs — Long.
Along the way, we had to decide if were sellers or buyers. On most days, we were sellers. But we had to be very descriptive of the other vendors.
Come to think of it, I don’t know why we never talked about the actual vendors. We only described what they were selling. I guess it was because we were sticking to the topic. Better describe what was there than who was there.
With one exception.
There was always a madman.
A market day would not be interesting without a madman. It was never a woman. Always a man.
He would engage someone in a fight, was often drunk, or make a mockery of himself. We’d have struck a good balance between being obedient and finding something interesting to talk about.
For obedience — no qualms about waking up and helping out during the day.
For intrigue — the madman. Because he was drunk, we’d always vouch never to drink. How naive we were back then.
I owe my life to that madman. I never met him in reality, but somehow, I vividly described him in all my essays. I’m now a doctor because of him. Shout out to all fantasy madmen.
Now that we’re on the topic of madness, I could also not share one incident at a supermarket near our place of residence, at a time when I barely knew any other form of fun besides football and playing with marbles (bano).
In the supermarket
I grew up in Eastlands.
Partly in Kayole, partly in Komarock.
Near Kanisani, the bus stop, was the biggest supermarket I knew at the time — Nova. Everybody knew Nova. I’d meet with almost all my classmates when we did the back-to-school shopping. It was huge. Nowadays, it’s Naivas.
I remember one time perusing through the shelves and asking myself why I had never bought a cup. They were freakishly cheap. One evening, coming home from school, I decided to buy one.
I was so proud.
I had to tell my mother when she came back from work.
I bought a cup.
When I was in class 2.
I contributed.
At the same time, my group of friends were a naughty bunch. I was innocent. Best believe.
One afternoon, two brothers, Jere and Omondi, planned a heist. They were going to steal. Nova was the target. They talked so boldly, of this bulletproof plan. Nothing could go wrong.
I was scared. My CRE teacher told me how wrong it was to steal. The song, Trust and Obey was one of my favourites. But my two friends tried to convince me to steal. After I had recently bought a cup.
It felt so wrong.
I conjured a lie — that I had to go home for lunch first. Luckily it was almost lunchtime.
As fickle as our attention spans were, I forgot about their plans. After meals, the default option was going out to play.
And just as I was making that corner, opposite PCEA church, to head to DIWOPA, I met a crowd.
Interesting.
It had circled right in front of where Jere’s and Omondi’s used to stay. As I went closer, I found my two friends, kneeling. They had received a thorough beating. It turned out that their bulletproof plan was anything but.
Despite currently being over 6 feet tall, back then, I was a small one. I only peeked from the crevices, as the adults surrounded the two hood ‘thieves’. They didn’t steal much. It was just a pack of sweets. But they were beaten like thugs.
I thanked my ‘wise’ self for thinking twice about joining them.
The following day, it was business as usual.
It’s funny how we quickly forget ‘tarnishable’ moments when we were kids. If you were a friend, that was all we cared about. Not that someone remembers you stealing from a supermarket.
Also, teachers never wanted us to talk about such incidents in our essays. It was interesting, but far from obedient.
But the best one was the Village Market.
The Village Market
The first time I went to Village Market was when I was a campus student.
Let that sink in.
It was also by luck because I visited my sister that December holiday.
My classmates in primary, however, had frequented the place several times. Before assembly, they’d report on Monday morning with stories of how they went to Splash and how they had the tastiest, crunchiest, most mouthwatering meals at the Village Market.
Funny thing, I never felt jealous.
For me, it was inspirational. I too wanted to see all they experienced. I wanted to have my moment at the Village Market.
Here’s the difference.
I confabulated two ideas. The Village and the Market.
To me, a market is a supermarket. Period.
The village is the village.
So when my classmates told me all the crazy events that went down at the Village Market, I had a peculiar picture. First, nothing like the tarmacked roads we were used to or the Cabro road at the real Village Market. It must have been dusty.
A village without dust was not a village. Period.
Secondly, my friends must have been among the few fancy people walking around, since the villagers would have donned thin slippers, and light if not tattered old clothes, with lessos to parade their groceries or other goods.
In my mind, my classmates must have been extremely good-looking.
Thirdly, I wondered how the bouncing castles and pool parks could have fitted inside the markets in the village. Where I come from, we’d bath by the lakeside. I had never seen a swimming pool with the swingamajjigers and floaters.
But these were the stories my friends told me about.
In my head, it felt like Peter Pan’s Neverland. An advanced centre, with a village boasting some of the most exciting places to visit.
I enjoyed these debriefing moments with my friends.
They sparked ideas of what to write whenever our teachers asked us to write the typical essay. Market day. Siku ya soko.
So when I visited the Village Market for the first time, I was disappointed. I had a lot of expectations. A child’s imagination can be wild. Best not to kill it.
Regardless, it also had its positives. Now I knew where my ‘Neverland’ was. I could visit it as often as I wished, and explore the actual Village Market, not the one I invented in my head. Sadly.
As I close…
Child-like imagination is what I cling to when I read books.
It was also what I latched onto when my friends told me about their trips to The Village Market.
They were interesting, but not nearly as interesting as the cases of theft, offshoot trips, and bargaining moments we had. If teachers could be a little open, they’d have interesting stories from their students.
With the current education system, I’m not too sure if they have essay-writing sessions.
But I hope at the very least, there’s story-telling.
As the world changes into AI assistance, stories will be moments we’ll turn to for originality.
I hope they never get stifled.
And I hope more children get wild versions of inventions as I did when I was younger.
How I wish I could rewind.
PS: From the streets of Kayole, I went to start the lightest newsletter on the Planet. I kid you not. Join 50+ others.
