She walks haggardly, carrying a basketful of fruits and vegetables on her head, traversing the streets of the city and or suburbs, carrying a baby, tightly strapped onto her back, bent on eking a living for self and family. Another woman of her ilk, also a vendor, is indolently carrying second hand clothes—some in her palm and others on her shoulder, but, still, with an innocent baby on her back.
She is not alone in this city, Kigali. They are hundreds of them, roaming the streets, flashing their merchandise into the faces of the many potential clients, with a soft inviting voice of “buy from me dear”, followed by a weak shy smile. With the innocent baby fastened and secured on her back.
And her business is illegal. Street vending is prohibited in Kigali; yet she has to forge a living—feed, clothe and shelter that child she is carrying on her back and, probably, one or two more left at home.
“This is the only decent work I can do. With the kind of uncertain income I get, I can’t afford the luxury of hiring a house-help to take care of the children. There are two others at home. So am personally compelled to carry him along as I sell fruits around,” says Mukashema Grace, 27, who this author finds in Remera, Giporoso, a Kigali suburb.
Indolently resting her basket at the pavement of the road, Mukashema looks tired and almost spent to the last atom of her energy. Yet it is only 10.00am. She cuts one of the fruits from her basket, an avocado, gets a slice, slowly peels it and gently hands it over to her baby boy whom she tells this writer is called Gisubizo Pierre, two years old.
Mukashema then pulls out a plastic bottle from her faded formerly black bag (now falling somewhere between grey and brown), opens the bottle that is half filled with milk, and feeds Gisubizo, who, without any show of mood change, quaffs the milk and seem to yearn for more but he doesn’t say.
Gisubizo looks like he lives in the wild of the center of the city.
I ask Mukashema if she cannot leave Gisubizo with his siblings. “They go to school,” she says with a wry smile on her prematurely aging face. “And I have to go back home before mid day to cook for them. After lunch, if I still have some fruits and vegetables, then I go back to my itinerant business.”
“How about the father?” I ask. “You will not want to know me all in a few minutes. Leave me and my problems alone,” she offers. “He must be a very busy man that he can’t even find time to support you in parenting and feeding the family,” I try to cajole her. “That’s not the issue,” she hurriedly says. “He is in prison,” she quietly says in a matter-of-fact as she straps Gisubizo back on the back, lifting her fruits basket to the head.
Gisubizo, like many other children with itinerant mothers, is susceptible to many health risks; the scotching sun, hunger, accidents as mothers run away from law enforcers who, on many occasions, chase them away from the centers of central business.
On a quick observation, you may think the government is doing nothing to support these wretched of the towns. The government, however, says there is a strategy of fishing every Rwandan from the miseries of poverty.
The Minister of Gender and Family Promotion (MIGEPROF), Oda Gasinzigwa says the Cooperatives Policy is meant to cater for such people as Mukashema.
“Female itinerant traders have always been asked to leave streets and join cooperatives so as to get their lives and their children better. When they get together, it becomes easy for the government to avail them support,” says the minister.
In a recent press briefing Gasinzigwa said; “We request them to receive the support or opportunities brought by the government to operate in secured environments, which is also a good thing for their children to be saved from the burning sunshine,” she said.
She also says plans are underway to launch Early Child Development Centers across the country to provide day care services to free mothers for commercial and other work during day.
Well, it is not clear who will be meeting the care fees as most of the parents in question cannot afford the fees. The centers to be created may be out of their financial reach.
Besides, have those women that have left streets accessed any government support? Olive Nyirandayisenga, one of the vendors cum parents is not sure.
“I am not a member of any cooperative. My colleagues, also street vendors, informed me that they haven’t received any support promised by the government. So we shall continue carrying the burden of our children on our backs as we scratch for a living. And we shall continue running with them on our backs as law enforcers chase us away from town centers.”
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