Waiting for change

Hilary, the provost’s personal driver, had stopped the SUV at a butcher’s shop. We were on the way to Mwika, to the third campus of Stefano Moshi Memorial University College, where I would begin my second year of teaching. All of my belongings rattled in the back because Hilary still had the SUV in idle while he talked to the butcher. In a few minutes, Hilary returned, and we waited in the car still burning up fuel.

We were not waiting for meat. The butcher owed the provost money. A few weeks ago, the provost had wanted four kilos of pork, but there were only two kilos of pork available. The butcher also did not have change that day. He promised to return it another day.

Hilary had tried to get the change from the butcher on previous trips, but apparently the butcher had had enough warning to run away before Hilary’s arrival. Today Hilary had surprised him. Now the butcher left to collect the change, going from place to place asking others for donations. (He was probably telling them he’d pay them back later.)

Once I rode in a taxi and upon giving the driver my money, he said he didn’t have change. There were two other passengers in the taxi waiting to move on, and rather than argue with him, I left seething.

After about 15 minutes, Hilary turned off the engine, resigning himself to uncertain fates: the engine might never start and the butcher might never return. A collection of children arrived and stared at me for a while. Some dared to greet me and then ran away. Others with courage stayed behind. Hilary got out of the vehicle and talked to the butcher’s friend who’d been standing at the counter. Finally the butcher arrived with the change, but it wasn’t enough. This was all he could get at the moment. Hilary told him to get some more. We waited.

On another day, the taxi incident still sizzling in my memory, I rode a bus that goes up to Masoka, but I got off in Moshi Town at the Uhuru Hotel. I handed the conductor a 500 shilling note and asked for change. He said there was no change. He asked other passengers, and at that moment, no one felt like coughing up change. I said, “No change, no money!” I grabbed the money I had just given him, and repeated, “No change, no money!” I stared at him with nostrils flared and eyes bulging, waiting for a protest.

Inside the bus, the passengers were saying, “What did she say? What did she say?”
“She said, ‘No change, no money.’”

The bus roared away, the passengers roaring with laughter.

Somewhere inside of Hilary, a clock was ticking, and he decided he’d waited long enough. The SUV started with only a hiccup, leaving the remaining change to fate.