Mara raced down the streets, she had forgotten her umbrella back home when she was going to work in the morning. Elias had told her jokingly to carry her umbrella but the morning had been so sunny that she shrugged off the idea of it raining. The wind was blowing strongly, such that the trees were swaying to the sides like they were going to break. She saw an iron sheet get plucked off a house by the wind. She had to get home fast. It wasn't just her though, everyone was trying to get to where they were going a lot faster. The commotion caused an unusual bustle on the street and all of a sudden, there was panic all around Mara. Her way was being blocked by 'matatus' all around and the 'makangas' were so busy trying to get customers to fill their minibuses. The minibuses were so common in the streets of Nairobi. The minibuses, however, seemed to be moved more to the side like they were creating space for some respected person to use the road. Mara was appalled, she wove her way out of the busy sideline to the other side. She heard beeps just as she was about to start to cross the road. A fleet of V8 Chevrolet cars, about seven or eight of them, passed right in front of her.
She wished she was that rich, to have people get out of the way whenever she was passing or drive even one of the luxurious cars that she had seen. But she wasn't that rich and the thought of driving even a Toyota Wish would be like a dream come true for her. Her phone beeped, she didn't care to check it out, she knew it was one of those university boys that she had studied with trying to check up on her or even propose to her. But she had rejected so many guys back when she was studying two years ago, and somehow she was starting to regret her decisions. Not many guys approached her now, with the idea of being family to her. Now, most of them just wanted business or casual sex. She was disgusted so much by relationships these days, just a week ago, her ex-boyfriend had told her he couldn't do it anymore and she had to break up with him. Sebastian, unlike Mara, was rich and could easily sustain his family. He had told Mara that it was difficult to have attachments with her since they were of different social classes.
"Thank God you are home, I was just about to call you," said Silvia, Mara's mom. "Supper is ready, serve it while it's still hot."
Elias jumped in, "serve it while it lasts!" He said jokingly.
They all sat round the brown mahogany table, all except Victor, Mara's dad, he was out and away on a business trip and he was only coming back on Friday. He always spent the whole week away from home and when he came back, he could go out with Silvia on dates.
As they sat around the table, eating, the rain started to fall. So hard, with thunder and hail, and lightning. The meal was so spicy, just the way Mara loved it, fish, with brown 'ugali' and vegetable soup. All spiced up with the native green Kenyan pepper. It was just so good. Elias licked his lips, he usually ate his supper fast so he could use Mara's phone to play a video game. Mara never liked him doing this because she was insecure he would read her messages. Most times Elias had to beg her so much to give him her phone. He was only in high school, and mummy didn't want him playing all the time instead of reading for his final exams.
Thoughts sparked in Mara's mind. The cars she had seen earlier, they looked a bit familiar. As if she had seen them somewhere earlier that day, but she wasn't so sure where. Her life had been stuck after she finished doing university about a year and a half ago. She was stuck with her public relations certificate and it had been so hard for her to find employment. She wished anyone would just offer her a job, in exchange of anything, even herself! All she needed to change her life was money, lots of it. The city was filled with rich CEO'S, men with all types of jobs, sitting behind their desks doing a bunch of nothing, and earning a chunk on their fat payslips. But this same city was also filled with hawkers trying to get the most basic of items and sell them for the little that they could get. And Mara was one of the hawkers, deep inside Eastleigh town, she sold hotdogs, sausages, french fries and chapatis by the road side. She would wake up everyday at around Four in the morning to prepare the salad she would serve them with, and also the famous 'kachumbari', which was a mixture of chopped onions and tomatoes, that the folk adored so much. Most of the time she finished work so late, and often had rough time in the city's cold weather at night. Also, her area was full with thugs and drunken men all around, trying to get a slice of life out of everyone else's own. Mara had become so popular intheir street for the job that she did.
And today, was a morning like no other, she was awake already, yet it was still 3 in the morning, she had decided to go to work early today so she would finish earlier than the previous days. The cold was seeping in slowly through the cracks of their walls and everyone was asleep except her. She washed her trolley and dried it up, then filled it with her commodities. She had a good feling about today. She pushed her trolley out and locked the door behind her, even still, she could hear her brother snore despite the loud noise coming from her shoes hitting against the pavement. She had her scarf around her neck, and she had put on really tight leggings, with her favourite skirt and her hawkers apron. She had two pairs and today she wore the newer one, because she had washed the other one. The street lights were going off, it was six in the morning. The city was coming back to life and she could feel the bursting sounds of music in bars turn off gradually, replaced by the sounds of other people like her, trying to offset their businesses.
The matatus were already filling the town and everything came back to normal as they had been the previous day, as if no one had ever left the street. She saw a little school girl walk by, she wanted two sausages, but she had only had twenty shillings, and one sausage costed thirty shillings. Mara didn't want to heartbreak the little girl. She recalled being like that many years back, studying at Juja primary school. The little girl bid her goodbye, with a smiling face, that's what mara liked to see, she liked to see other people feeling better than she felt when she was in the same situation.
She was still setting her seat at her roadside stall when she saw a Chevrolet V8 stop right in front of her. It was familiar, like one of the many she had seen pass the road yesterday. The guy inside pulled his window down, he didn't look Kenyan to her, he had a little bit of American flair about him but his skin showed African origin. Mara was trembling, she could see the man's lips move like he was saying something, but she couldn't hear anything.
"You said how many sir?" she said to shrug her fantasies off.
"I've said it like five times now, you know what, just give me all of them, I'll pay for them." He answered, surprised.
Mara was confused, she took out a black polythene bag and wrapped the hotdogs neatly with aluminium foil, and put the sausages and the foil inside the bag. Then she peeled off all the 37 eggs and put them in another polythene bag. She put in her sauce jar, it was homemade, she wasn't going to need it anymore. Then she wrapped everything and gave it to him.
"What's the number, I need to pay up, I'm getting late for my appointment." he said.
"Its 0713111....she stammered a bit and continued.. three, three, two. And he drove off, leaving her listening to the sound of her M-Pesa beeping. She pulled the message down, and for a moment thought she was seeing something wrong with the figures he had sent. It was supposed to be 10,000, but he had sent 20,000. Maybe it was a mistake, she didnt have his number so there was no way to call him and return his money so she headed home, whispering to herself how cute he thought the guy was.