What does desperation cause?

The other night my sleep was interrupted.  This happens from time to time during hot season as the power comes and goes.  However, Sunday night was different – I was awakened around midnight by my guard pounding on the door.  He woke me to let me know that the market down the street was on fire – he was jumping the electrical counter of my house so that if the fire travelled down the wires, it would not wreck havoc on my home.

As we were discussing the fire, we heard the gas bottles in the market begin to explode and shoot through the air.  Had he not woken me, I would have soon been awake from the noise!  The hazy view from the smoke drifted through my yard and it began to sound like mid-day as all my neighbours spilled into the street to watch the fire and chat about what was going on.

I went back to bed with a prayer in my heart for the stalls of the merchants that I know – my tailor, the man from whom I buy tea and grain.  The next morning I hear that it took four hours to extinguish the fire!  Almost three-quarters of the Yantala market has been destroyed!

 

Many have lost their livelihood – in a famine year with food shortages just beginning to affect the population – it is like kicking the poor while they are down!  On top of that, during the fire, looters entered and began to steal what they could find.  My heart is saddened by the depravity of mankind to seek to gain from others’ loss.

 

This is Mohammed – I buy grain, tea, matches, sacks of rice from him. 

His boutique at the edge of the market was not burned, but he is standing on the ground of his storage unit that was on the inside of the market area.  All that he had here is lost.  Even in the night – as he and his guard tried to empty his boutique, thieves were taking all that they carried to his truck and carting it off.  There were only two of them – not enough to save items and guard at the same time!

My tailor’s boutique is fine – the fire ended two rows from his shop and he did not suffer from theft.  Though his machine and material is safe, the market will be closed for a while before he can start to run his business again. 

Each time I drive by the market, I look in at the devastation and I can picture each stall and everyone I know.  Which seller speaks Fulfulde and from whom I buy baby clothes for naming ceremonies.

  I remember the young Djarma guy who loves to greet me and is always happy to speak Djarma ‘small small’ with me as I buy soap, dates, tomato tins, pasta and candies for my guards’ children. 

I remember even the happy yet sometimes annoying Djarma man who thinks I need to speak more Djarma – consistently chattering to me in Djarma, thinking that perhaps if he continues to speak, maybe I will learn just by hearing osmosis!  From him I buy pagne material for clothes – and every time, a smile lights his face as he says to me ‘thank you a thousand times . . . a thousand times thank you!!’.

The man from whom I buy sandals who greets me every time I walk by, whether or not I buy from him, he is just happy to see me.  And all the various other merchants from whom I shop occasionally – the plastics man for buckets, the veggie stand for carrots, the sewing boutique for thread and lace. 

All is gone.  And I wonder where they are now and how they will survive.

 

As I write this blog post – word has come today that another market place – the Petit Marché – caught fire in the middle of the night.  This morning, I heard that it has burned to the ground.  My friends have gone by and said that it looks like a ghost town – nothing left . . . no one around but the sellers who are sitting on the curb in tears and in shock over losing all they had.  My neighbour is included in their ranks.

Yesterday, I drove through the Petit Marché on my way to a restaurant – never dreaming that the next day it would not exist. 

Word on the street now is that thieves are deliberately setting fire to the markets in the middle of the night so that they can steal in the pandemonium.  My heart breaks. 

And I wonder if this is what desperation causes? 

As the price of food continues to rise due to the food crisis in Niger – are people desperate enough to burn down an entire market solely so that they can gain a few stolen sacks of food with which to feed their family? 

If this is the case – the irony is that the Petit Marché is one of the main food markets in town – the supplier of all the small markets around.  In a situation of already rising food prices – how will this now change as the food becomes more scarce?

Today, my heart mourns – for a country in desperate need of food.  And for a people so desperate in need themselves that starting a fire to steal food for their family becomes justifiable. 

Courtesy to Chantelle McIver for the Yantala Marché photos.