Small business is something more of an art than a science here in the forgotten rural villages of Kenya's coastal province. "Competitors" find it commonplace to refer customers to one another, supply and demand has almost no sway over local prices, and the thought of a price war...well...there's just isn't any thought at all. No, nestled here on the outermost fringes of the corporate world's leering, opportunistic gaze, the rules of capitalism just don't seem to have fully taken hold. But in these dusty streets lined with rows of shops, or rather multiple duplicates of the same shop, one has little to go by, save for family and tribal loyalties, when deciding which duka shall be the deserving recipient of their repeat patronage. Enter customer service.
To identify the origin of my own consumer loyalties I need look no further back than that fateful Sunday afternoon during a period that the majority of the world generally recognizes as autumn. Now, this not the kind of Sunday afternoon Lionel Richie would sing about, or the kind that would involve a picnic basket and a golden retriever with biblical first and middle names, a penchant for catching frisbees, and an uncontrollable habit of randomly soiling the carpet despite being the perfect companion in nearly every other way. Nor is this the kind of Sunday afternoon where legions of boozed-up armchair quarterbacks crowd in front of their TV sets to passionately root on their team, which has to close out the season with 9 straight wins in order to have a winning record and chance at the playoffs. No, this is the kind of Sunday afternoon that I imagine you might encounter during the Spanish Inquisition, where the pious are in church and the less pious are staying out of site so as not to broadcast the inadequacy of their piety to those who would have them tied to a ferrel donkey and dragged through a breyer patch. It is on this type of Sunday afternoon, this holiest of afternoons, that I step out from my humble abode in search of some kind of produce to prepare as part of my evening meal.
Appetancy driving my steps, I start rounding the very limited array of options which may be even remotely capable of satisfying my desires for vegetable goodness. The first stop in my procession, the village market; a helter-skelter assemblage of branches, birches, and sticks lashed together into a makeshift, chest high, six foot by two foot table. Selection at this bazaar is anything but predictable, being totally dependent on local harvests, weather patterns, and whoever decides to happen upon to the market that day for the purpose of sprawling their various surpluses out across the surface overtall bench. The rules of exchange here are simple: anything on the table is for sale, anything under the table....well, those are probably somebody's children. Whether the result of my having gotten off to a late start or a flat out absence of variety from the day's outset, by the time I arrive I find the lone eatable on the counter to be a basket full of dried makumba, a small river dwelling fish that, if you didn't know better, you may mistake for a newly born sardine. Not exactly the ideal side dish for an herbivorous individual such as myself. Having already gone the previous day without taking in anything higher than the first layer of the food pyramid, again due to fluctuations in the market, my prospects of consuming anything even remotely resembling a balanced diet on this weekend look grim.
Spirits dashed, palate unsatiated, my mind, rolling through the short list of options still available, steers me toward the local supermarket, a two meter by two meter establishment whose produce section is consistent of a small cardboard box full of onions which, surprisingly, is always well stocked. Fighting off the urge to completely surrender myself to dejection and discouragement, I enter dim, windowless structure and exchange greetings with the shop keeper, a young man no older than myself with a persistent close-lipped smile, a pair of brightly attentive eyes, and a deep yet soft spoken voice that is like a smooth, melodic butter spread in a perfect grade over the eardrums.
Formalities observed, I cut straight to the chase, "Do you have any vegetables besides onions?" I pry inquisitively, like a zealous gumshoe poking around for a hot lead.
Eyes shifting, fingertips rapping tersely against one another in a disjointedly rhythmic manner, he is clearly mulling over the best way to tell me 'No'. His unfocusing gaze continues to dart across walls lined floor to ceiling with merchandise as though scanning for some unseen object when suddenly his eyebrows shoot up like a pair of freshly roasted toaster pastries and he moves to his left with a purpose typically reserved for mothers who are hoisting cars up off of small children. Reaching up on a high shelf he pulls down and, in the same motion, dexterously bags a pair of glowing red tomatoes. Already willing to pay any price demanded of me I start fumbling through my pockets for coins, bills, property deeds, permenant teeth, and anything else mildly of value.
"How much?" I query, doing little to disguise my disadvantage at the bargaining table.
"Just take them," he tells me, the thought to charge me never crossing his mind and he extends to me the bag of what was clearly meant to be a part of his own dinner.
Realizing that declining this gesture of kindness would be about as culturally acceptable as delivering a roundhouse kick to the stomach, not to mention being too starved of variety to try, I accept the satchel of fruit like a Nobel Peace Prize, feeling as though I should make some memorable speech to commemorate the moment. I recognize that no combination of nouns, verbs, or adjectives could adequately express my gratitude for what would be the best tomatoes I've ever consumed, rather, I hope that my undying customer loyalty will help convey that sentiment.
