Undo

“No one is bothering to ask where this Pickup truck is going.”

9:14am: We are crammed at the back of a pickup truck. My clothes are dirty and I haven’t even started the journey. There are 12 women and two small boys seated atop two layers of sugar sacks and an assortment of plastics destined for Koch Onyaco. Four men have taken strategic position on the roof of the pickup and two men at the front seats.

I am seated on a sack right at the back of the driver’s side. My legs ache from that awkward position. If I raise my leg a little, I will step on the woman immediately squeezed near me, the only option would be head out further atop so that I might kind of join the men at the top but it’s so squeezed up there and I am not sure I will keep my hold when the vehicle starts moving.

Daphne is seated right below me at a valley created by two sacks; she is quite pretty from where she is. Her brown shawl, her face sunk downwards. The outline of her face equanimous and ready for the challenge. Some kind of innocence crept over her. It was something she shared with the other women. An integration with the sacks, seamlessly, no shifts of discomfort like I am experiencing. There is an easeful recline in their postures, like they are ready to go right to sleep.

A kind of silence enshrouds the boundary of the pickup. Like the vehicle has cast a spell onto us, all around us are pickups going to different destinations with rowdy touts and passengers exchanging all kind of noise. There seems to be nothing in particular keeping us here. If you looked well at the pickup, there is no space for an extra person unless they are going to sit on top of the women. If you ask me, no one is bothering anymore to know where this pickup is going. All the touts have shifted attention