The Market in Nyamirambo

Not frequented by tourists, it is one of the largest markets in Kigali. A small entryway led to a maze of stands; cobblers sewing sandals by hand; meat vendors waving the flies off slabs of meat; charcoal distributors covered in soot. Emily, one of my coworkers who speaks French and Swahili, graciously served as my ambassador. The women at the vegetable tables greet her with warm embraces and me with affectionate amusement. They sell the expected goods: carrots, bell peppers, garlic, tomatoes, etc. There is, however, one great exception. The beans. One of the women had a massive pile of beans resting in a wooden bowl. Some were orange like earthen clay. Others were bright blue lightly speckled by white and pink. Light green with dark green lines running from crown to base, like a mountain goat with a few extra sets of horns. Red with subtle veins coursing underneath the skin. All mixed together, almost soft enough to eat.

While walking through the market, three boys were never more than a few feet from me. Even when the whispered to each other, they kept a visual contact on the tall stranger with a sunburn. When I made eye contact, they would say, “Give me a job,” in sound English. They wanted to carry my bag of groceries.

We finally came to the sugar cane man. Squatted in from of sections of sugar cane 8 to 10 feet long, he laughed and shouted a greeting as Emily and I approached. Without looking behind him, he grabbed one of the spears and listened to Emily’s request for a 3 foot section. The cane was segmented like bamboo but much denser and less rigid. He cut off our portion with a handle-less blade, a rag wrapped around one end. Emily was the first white person to ever buy from him.

We went to Emily’s rented room in Nyamirambo to enjoy the fruit. Sugar cane is a fibrous plant with a thick, almost black bark which you have peel to get to the pale yellow innards – no small, or safe, feat when using a dull knife and your thigh as a cutting board. Once peeled, the best way to eat sugar cane is to break off a piece, gnaw on it for a while to release the juices, and then throw that piece on the ground. Repeat until the cane is gone or you collapse in a diabetic stupor. When we were finished, Emily simply swept the discarded cane into the pit latrine.