#themoneyandtheman

As you alight from the taxi on a particularly bad weather day, with the sky looking dark and angry, your phone rings. It is one of your neighbors, Ma Lihanna. The line keeps breaking and you call her back. She says her father is very sick in hospital but you can’t hear much after that. You tell her to wait as you’ll be home in a few minutes.

Just as the first fat drops of rain start falling, you dash over to her house. She lets you in. The first thing you notice is her very short black floral print dress which shows her thighs to the fullest. She’s wearing layers of brown powder, her eyebrows have been pencilled over, and her lips are dripping with a red substance.

Ma Lihanna says her father lives in Kigali and has suddenly taken ill, so she has to take him some money. You feel bad for him, and for her, and you ask what exactly the matter is. She doesn't really know. All the while, your eyes are fixed on the drawings on her face, and she titters and averts her gaze.

She says she needs 300,000 shillings. Y’know she has just paid school fees, house rent and bought supplies for the home and has practically no money left. And she has to travel to Mbarara as well. Her brown traveling bag sitting in the sofa, packed and ready for the trip.

You start to buy time, telling her about the shitty weather because you need time to process her tall request. And how you will omba for your money back because she quarrels about everything from the neighbor’s kids playing near her house, the estate manager knocking on her door when she’s still sleeping at 10am, to bodaboda men who bring her back in the wee hours but are not patient enough to wait until the maid has opened the front door. So… what will happen when you want your money back? That titter again.

In that flicker of a second, it hits you that she might be lying to you. Just. Maybe.

Anyway, truth is, you don't have that much money lying around. You say you can try to raise 100,000 shillings. She eagerly replies that it’s okay. Anything will do.

But the reality in your bag shows that you have only 40,000 shilling to spare. You knock on her door. She has changed into a red number, longer this time, and a shiny sweater. You convey the message. An unhappy look sweeps over her face, but only for a moment. She grabs at the money. It will do, she says desperately, leaving you wondering about how fast she has downgraded her needs. Less than quarter of the loaf she asked for, is better than no bread?

As you make to leave, you hear the unmistakable sound of a man’s laugh. It comes from the regions of the bedrooms.

You don't even feel the rain soak you as you walk back to your house deep in thought.