Its 7pm on a Thursday night and I am seated on a wooden bench with five other adults at the verandah of one of the several wooden kiosks found in a busy trading center at Ggaba landing site. not the usual place one would find me but here I was waiting for Sekamatte a produce trader. on this specific night, I needed a box of tomatoes. Sekamatte was late and I decided to use this period to read my mail. I was so engrossed that I didn’t notice my battery was warning. So, I put it aside and began to take interest in my surroundings.
Ggaba is a very busy trading center with several shops, liquor stores, restaurants among others. There was a market bustling with activity. A dark short woman with a strong build caught my attention. She was right across the road from where I was seated and there were several people around what appeared to be a makeshift restaurant. Two wooden benches, much like the one I was seated on were filled with people busy eating silently. others are around waiting impatiently for a chance to sit down. Others are standing besides what appears to be a charcoal stove. She is a jolly woman who somehow manages to engage all her clientele and she is obviously in charge. I can’t hear a word from where I am seated but it’s a lively scene to watch.
I observe two young ladies who are equally as busy as she is, they move from customer to customer clearing trays, serving, popping open soda and beer bottles, and providing water for washing hands. They are fast and efficient, their movements coordinated and they seem to know what one wants before they ask for it. Watching them is obvious that they are a team and have been working together. I conclude that the short dark woman is the boss and the two ladies her assistants.
By now, curiosity has got the best of me so I rise from my bench and cross the road. I gently push my way through the crowd careful not to draw attention to myself. On the ground are three basic cooking points. They are the basic three stones with firewood, a black frying pan sits on each all filled with boiling hot oil. In one is fish the second pan has thinly sliced cassava and a third Irish potato chips. Each of the women monitors a pan gently turning the items with a long spoon. I watch as one of the assistants picks up a tray and places a hot fish straight from the oil onto the tray, some cassava, avocado, sliced tomatoes and onions, and hands it over to a middle- aged man sitting on the bench, the other places another tray with similar ingredients only that this time she puts Irish potato chips instead of cassava into the hands of a young lad.
I position myself close to the short dark woman, and ask how much a tray cost. she pauses and politely informs me that it is 15,000/= to which I reply for it to be packed.
I hear someone addressing her as Nalongo and that’s my cue so I begin to probe. she has been doing this for 8 years. Her day begins at 3am, this is the time fishermen begin to dock and she can get fresh and well priced fish. by 5am, loaded with her fish she stores it in a freezer and heads home. She is a single mother of five children aged 12 to 5 years all of school going age.
She reports to work by 5pm and sets up her work station with the help of her assistants and begins work. Her customers begin to trickle in at 6pm and as the evening progresses she gets busier and busier. it is busy 24/7. I ask her what time she closes shop and she assures me that her target is to sell 100 fish daily. Some days are fast while others are slow.
