CONTENTS | ANB-BIA HOMEPAGE | WEEKLY NEWS
by Goual Nanassoum, Chad, August 1999
THEME = SOCIAL CONDIT.
These dynamic survivors, the street hawkers...
It's a bargain, mate! Take my word for it!". They patrol the roads, laying seige to bars and cafes, with their wares on their head, around their neck and their arms, and in their hands, scorched by the Sun, drowned by the rain. They offer towels, shoes, boxer-shorts, in brief, anything they can easily carry. No potential buyers can pass them by. These "Kanembou" are veritable walking shops.
Besides those who roam the streets and bars, there are others who occupy N'Djamena's central market. They sell second-hand clothes, mosquito nets, secondhand shoes, loin cloths, leather goods, pots and pans...prepared to trample other hawkers in search of a client.
Regarding the price, haggling rules.
For an article costing 3,000 CFA francs elsewhere, a "Kanembou" will demand 30,000 CFA francs, only to let it go for 1,500. Those who frequent the capital get to know where civil servants and the better-off live. They are ready to sell such people more expensive goods on credit.
Another group prefers Muslim neighbourhoods. Here they specialise in the sale of kola nuts, cigarettes, and "half-pay sandwiches", so called because the civil servants who mostly eat them, were on half-pay during the war (1982-1990).
They have also installed themselves in the provinces, especially in the big towns where, latterly, they have gone into property speculation. They buy plots of land only to resell them later to big businessmen at fantastic prices.
Very enterprising, the Kanembou adopt to every economic twist and turn. When a shortage threatens one line or field of business, the Kanembou quickly abandons it to start something else, thanks to a very efficient network of information. Many disappear from N'Djamena to reappear in the south of the country at the harvesting of ground nuts or other cereals. You can see them along the whole Chadian road system in their turbans occupying the front of vehicles heavily laden with merchandise.
The first thing one notices in the life of the Kanembou is its stinginess. While the Chadian is renowned as a great consumer, our Kanembou traders keep to a hard life. 5 or 6 of them come together to rent a small room, never paying more than 4,000 CFA francs a month for it. They take it in turns to prepare a simple daily meal costing 100-200 CFA francs each.
These guys know how to live on nothing" explains Mr Ahmat, a Tonjour Arab, long time neighbour of the Kanembou, who explains for us their selling techniques. They go out very early to check the roads. If they come across Muslims squatting in a group, occupying a whole road for a wake or some other ceremony, the crafty Kanembou soon arrive to sell kola or cigarettes, if need be, joining in the ceremony. At mealtimes, they do like everybody, joining in the meal. Then they disappear, their appetite satisfied, for the rest of the day.
There are three categories of hawkers based on the size of their business. There are those who, having sold their farm produce, come into town to buy a variety of small articles, from bags of sweets to watches and key rings, hawking them around town. Their turnover is always surprising, when you see them after several months, sagging beneath their merchandises. After two or three years of hawking, a Kanembou can eventually becomes a leading merchant.
Then there are others who "manage business" with relatives and friends. These take some of their goods and distribute them to nephews or cousins who hawk them around the town. After a few months they return to the capital to the uncle, keeping any profit made. They use this to start up their own bu- siness.
A third category starts off organising an "azouma", a sort of money- making ceremony, during which the invitees offer a few small bank-notes to the organiser. After such family "get- togethers", the Kanembou buys goods from relatives at a reduced price. He then goes off hawking these around town and after a while becomes a business man himself.
Though their French is rather poor, they understand dialectic Arabic, and also Ngambaye, but much less, which is gradually taking over from the latter in Chad. Since their clients are largely from the educated classes used to speaking French, the Kanembou jabbers away in Molière's tongue, spicing it with the occasional French word, picked up here and there.
They are often in groups of five or six for self-defence. When tired, they lay down in the middle of their wares for a snooze at the roadside or in the shade of bars while one keeps watch. To get around they rely on "shanks pony", never by taxi or minibus.
Outwardly fervent Muslims, they don't waste much time in prayer. They rushing through their ritual ablutions on mats or any spare carpets they find among their fellow believers, reciting a few Sura, then off they go with their merchandise. The same goes for brawls. They find quarrels and street-scuffles a great waste of time. Rarely replying to insults, they are for ever putting themselves in God's hands with a cheerful "Allah Y affta". The Kanembou is a man in a hurry with no time to waste before the forces of law and order.
Chadians ask themselves how the Kanembou do such good business, wondering if they use magic. But that's to under-estimate the scope and dynamism of these folk who take pot-luck with all the risks in a country where the state takes no part in daily life. The Kanembou trusts only in seif-reliance. Today, no one can doubt their economic clout, a true example to other Chadians, who apt for sloth or hand-outs.
END
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