Pat and I are marketing. We search through used clothing looking for sheets for the old woman who has come to the market with us today and is waiting in Pat’s vehicle. A beautiful old woman of about 80 - how does she survive? - she must, even at her age, still find an out of the way place in the chaotic marketplace to squat and relieve herself. No assisted living here; just living, or dying.

I find a beautiful used punjabi (sp?) top for $1 American. It is white and embroidered with gold. Though a shirt, it fits like a dress down to the knees, a way for me to wear pants in this culture!! I waver. It is hard for me to purchase here. Everything is weighted in terms of need and what the money could buy for someone suffering. Pat convinces me. Now I have made my first “for me” purchase in Nyahuka. I guess that means I am staying. Maybe its not too late for me to put it back . . .

Now Pat and I stand in the market together, being whipped by “mpwega” - the wind. Rain is coming. The people here only have to look at the sky to know the time the rain will come, the heaviness and the length of its stay. Amazing to me. People are running every which way, removing clothing from racks and placing sugar and flour and rice under covers. Rain.

We dash into a duka as big drops begin to fall. The small interior is about half the size of your typical American walk in closet, but the owner here is considered well off. It’s crammed with goods. We find an umbrella, a really nice one, for only 4,500 shillings and purchase it as we don’t have one yet. Who would think that you could find umbrellas here, yet you can. Mostly they are used for sun shelter, but also good for rain.

Now we walk, under cover, to another duka, this one selling kitangi cloth. I am searching for some fabric to have a shirt made, a christmas gift. As we stand in the duka, looking at the small selection of beautiful African fabrics, the rain intensifies. Now, even as we purchase our fabric, we are stuck. Even with umbrella there is no going back out. The small market road in front of us is now awash. A baffu, small basin, flows past us in what has become a river. Bikes resting against dukas collapse into the mud and are covered with swirling water. Pat pulls out her camera to grab a picture of the eddying mud and all around us dozens upon dozens of Africans stare with deep curiousity and interest at that camera. If only I could take a picture of them watching her take pictures. The scene is vividly National Geographic. Small, poorly constructed and dilapidated square wooden structures; held together with whatever, filled with mostly cheaply made, easily broken goods, meat hangs whole from hooks, our greatest commodity, people, line the covered fronts of the dukas.

Now the rain is slowing and we are stepping out to find the “tailor man” who will sew a shirt for me. We step through foul-smelling calf deep muddy water. Please God, let me have no open wounds on my feet. We watch the people in front of us who have more experience with the shallowest paths through in the rainy season. We buy sugar, carrots and some plastic shoes for someone who needs them. Then, wet, muddy and finished, we walk home.