Page 18 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 27 Final
P. 18
Economy
The best place to get the most basic food them to me for 400 Kenyan Shillings. I was
items and safe drinking water without having surprised at the new price, so I argued with
to drive to a supermarket. As we dive deeper him, explaining that the last time I bought
into unfolding the various agendas that are fish at that same spot, it was 300 per kilo. He
controlling the world, especially in the food looked at me and asked, “Did you buy from
production industry, we become way more me or directly from one of the fishermen?” In
conscious of the kind of food we eat and from my head, I was thinking, “What is he talking
where we get it. about? What’s the difference anyway?”
Apparently, he was not a fisherman but an
The quietest route around the neighborhood agent to the fishermen. It was then that I
where I can do my morning walks with the remembered I had bought the last fish directly
least presence of people. Sometimes my from one of the fishermen. Seeing how
morning walks and conversations with the surprised I was at the new price, the agent
Lord can be quite audible and dramatic. I decided to sell me the fish at 350 instead of
don’t want anyone to think something is 400.
wrong with me. LOL.
One of the fishermen who was standing by
These have become my go-to things that I came to me and started explaining to me
must do when we get to a new place. about the kind of deal they have with agents.
They have a simple method; the fishermen get
About a week after we moved to a village on the fish from the ocean and sell them to the
the South Coast, I went to get some fresh fish agent and then the agent or agents sell these
from the local fishermen at the beach which to the restaurants or hotels around. There are
is just about two minutes from our place. I lots of hotels and holiday homes in that area.
met a few of them under a shade where they He even told me how on a particular day they
gather after the day’s work at sea, so I bought came back from the ocean with plenty of fish,
two red snapper fish for 300 Kenyan shillings. but the agent was not around. So, they had
Both fish weighed a little above a kilo and to eat their fish by themselves. Meaning they
they looked really good and fresh. For me, had no money to take home.
that was a very good price. And that’s because
we had experienced how expensive fish can So, I asked him why they don’t sell to
be in the restaurants in the Diani area. One restaurants or hotels by themselves. He
of those fish that I got for 300 KShs sells for gave me a long story that did not answer my
close to a thousand shillings in the restaurant. question. But the conversation with him and
So, it was a good bargain. everything that happened on that beach that
day was quite interesting to me. New, and
A few days later, I went back there to get interesting.
some fish but this time, I purchased them
from someone else whom I had not noticed Now, as I walked back home from the beach
the first time I was there. I asked for a kilo that day holding the fish I had bought, I was
of the same red snapper fish and he gave thinking of what happened with the agent
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