In the small village of Lyantonde, it’s the hum of trucks passing that first wakes you in the morning. Not the birds. Or the kitchen. Even the large woman sweeping briskly in the courtyard. No. It’s the trucks that wake you.
The entire main street is hemmed with them. At all hours they come whistling past, brakes trembling, horns babbling, cargo thrashing. Scattering children, goats, they slip into empty slots and join the assembly line of matoke, petrol, cattle, grain. More petrol. Roadside buildings cower under these looming behemoths, their windows wincing in the plumes of red dust that spew from weary tires, their walls perpetually cast in a rusty pallor.
One, perhaps two drivers step out. A man emerges from the cargo hold, sneezing.
