I DON'T KNOW if I should say it was hooliganism or lust for life or ignorance, I don't know.
I did that event a few years ago when I was still a girl with hope for life.
Educationally, I had not studied more than the knowledge to erase ignorance, that is to know how to read and write. I only finished the seventh grade. And I stopped that class due to my absence from school.
I never even took the national exam, I was not going to school. My father and mother had already passed away. My mother died when I was in the fifth grade and my father followed her when I was in the seventh grade which I did not finish.
I was told that I was smart but I didn't like studies at all. My classmates who I had in the seventh grade told me that if I had taken the seventh grade exam, I would have succeeded in going to secondary school because of my intelligence.
Despite finishing the seventh grade, my cleverness enabled me to speak the English language with good fluency, but in writing it was a disaster, but I was able to read books and newspapers written in that language.
Many people who did not know me well thought that I had a college education, but it is basic.
When I left school I was thirteen years old. I used to live with my aunt in Ilala areas in Dar city. My aunt took me in after both my parents passed away.
My name is Mishi. My father was called Ramadhani Mzaka, Mdigo wa Tanga. My mother was Muarusha. She was a white woman like an Arab. I was the one who matched him for his whiteness and beauty.
It was the temptations of men that got me into trouble at a young age. There was a young man called Sele, popularly known as Sele Msela. He is the one who made me fall in love.
I had studied with him in primary school in the same class. When I left school, he continued until he reached the fourth form.
Two years later he managed to get a job at the Port Authority. I used to meet him almost every day since we lived in the same street.
Sele was the first guy to tell me that he wanted to date me after dating him for a long time. A few months later, Sele was caught with stolen goods at the port. He had a game of smashing things and coming to sell them in town.
Although he won the case, he was fired and went back to work. Since he was used to keeping money, life defeated him and he ran to Sauzi to find a life. In the first days, we used to communicate by phone, he gave me hope that his intention to marry me was there, but as the days went by, our communication stopped. The days went by. I forgot about Sele because we had no contact anymore.
One day I was coming from Kigoma. The bus broke down on the way. We stayed until night, the bus was still being processed. A truck passed by on its way to Dar. I was standing alone on the side of the road.
When the truck driver saw me, he braked and put his head out the window and asked me.
I was in the midst of thoughts mixed with exhaustion. The driver's voice startled me.
“What do you say?” I asked him.
“Are you going to Dar?” He asked me again.
“Yes, I am going to Dar, but our bus has broken down.”
“Are you ready to travel by truck?”
“Stop the truck, I'm even ready for a tractor. I'm so tired.”
“Come pack yourself and let's go.”
Since I didn't have any luggage other than my backpack that I had on my shoulder, I moved to the truck. Taniboi opened the door and came down and passed me. I got into the truck.
I was placed in the middle. To my right was a driver. To my left was a taniboi.
“Where are you from?” The driver asked me.
“I'm from Kigoma,” I answered and added.
“But I regret taking the bus, it broke down three times on the way.”
“I'm so sorry. Now are you a resident of Kigoma or Dar?”
“He is a resident of Dar. Kigoma I only went once.”
They themselves were chewing the boiled corn they bought on the way. They gave me one, and I started chewing.
When it was two o'clock at night, the truck stopped in a village. We went down to rest and get food. I refused to eat because I was tired and I did not want to eat due to the excitement of the trip.
But the truck driver forced me to eat.
“We will arrive at dawn, you will not have food again,” he told me. I decided to eat. I ate a whole chicken and rice. When I want to pay money, the driver told me not to pay. He paid. I thanked him for his kindness.
After eating we rested for a long time talking about this and that. When we started the journey again I fell asleep in the truck. Until I wake up we are in Chalinze.
“Where are we here?” I asked the driver.
“We are in Chalinze,” the driver answered.
“But I'm very sleepy. What time is it now?”
“It's almost nine o'clock.”
At Chalinze the truck stopped again. We went down. We entered a restaurant and drank tea. The driver sent his taniboi to buy quinces.
We stayed in the restaurant until the taniboi came with an envelope wrapped in mace. I heard the driver asking the taniboi.
“Did you find a pier or a farm?”
The driver opened it right there and looked at it.
“This is dark and then there is sleep,” he said after looking at it.
“Nowadays you can't find today's.”
They were six babies. The driver chose three young ones and took them, three he gave to his taniboi.
“Have you bought bigigii,” he asked.
They were in a bag. Taniboi reached into his pocket and took out about ten incense sticks.
The driver took five and left the other five for the taniboi.
“Let's go back to the car.” The driver told his taniboi. The driver I was sitting with got up and told me.
And I got up and we went out and went back to the car. They didn't leave right away, first they started chewing their quinces while smoking.
They were very angry with me because of the cigarette smoke. They only helped me that's why I put up with them.
“Why do these quinces taste so good?” I asked them.
“It gives us more than taste.” The driver answered me.
“I have been hearing quince eaters in Dar mentioning the handas but I don't know what it means.”
When I told them that, they laughed at me.
“Now what are you laughing at when I ask?'
“Handas is the intoxicant of this quince. First you feel comfortable and secondly it gives you a certain sense of refreshment.” The driver told me.
“How does it make you feel?”
“Each person gives a sense of his own style. There are people who get a feeling of wealth when they eat quince. They build mansions and buy luxury cars in their minds.”
“I mean, they just think they're buying cars and building houses when it's not true?” I asked them while looking at the driver and his taniboi in turn.
“Let's try to chew, you will see for yourself and you will not ask again.” The driver told me and gave me some quince leaves.
I started to chew while acting like they are eating. I felt it was bitter and it had saffron.
“Is it painful like this?”
“Eat with bigigii.” The driver told me.
The driver gave me a thumbs up. I opened it and it broke a little. His sweetness eased the pain I was feeling. I continued to chew.
“Then I hear that it is throwing up sleep,” I asked them.
“That's why you see many truck drivers eating.” The driver told me.
“Even some taxi drivers are also chewing. I have seen them.”
“The job itself is a headache, you have to eat quinces.”
The driver looked at his watch and then said.
He started the car and drove it on the road. We started the journey towards Dar.
The driver was driving while continuing to eat quinces. That's when I realized that quinces were working inside his head because his conversation started to change.
“You know since we loaded you, I haven't asked you your name, what is your name?” He asked me.
“My name is Mariam,” I lied to her and then asked her.
“And what is your name?”
“My name is Moses. Where do you live in Dar?”
I didn't want to tell him where I live but I thought if I tell him he can take me home, I told him.
Musa looked at my face and then looked at my chest.
“What are you doing?”
“Just business,” I continued with my lie. I had no business.
“What business do you do?”
I thought a little and then I told him.
“I always bring rice from Mbeya.”
“From Mbeya or Kigoma?”
“From Mbeya, I went to Kigoma only for my other problems.”
A short silence passed before the driver asked me again.
