As the hunger continued, illnesses that had once been minor became severe.
A cough that should have ended after a few days lasted for weeks. Wounds did not heal. Children developed fevers after drinking dirty water from livestock pits. The medicine woman, Bibi Amina, came to the porridge station every morning with baskets of leaves, roots, and small bottles of oil.
“Food is the first medicine,” she said.
“But since you do not have enough, we will protect what remains in the body.”
She taught them to boil water, separate patients with diarrhea, and never use one poisonous root without soaking it overnight. Neema added marks to the porridge register: a child with a fever, a nursing mother, an old person unable to walk.
Some people were angry that the sick received larger portions.
“We are all hungry,” one man said.
Bibi Amina replied, “Yes. But when one roof catches fire, you do not pour the same amount of water on every house.”
Neema remembered those words when she distributed the reserve. Equal measures were not always justice according to need.
One day, four people were brought in after eating wild roots. Two were vomiting, one could barely see, and a small child had lost consciousness. Bibi Amina ordered that they be given plenty of water and charcoal medicine. The child survived, but his mother died before evening.
Word spread that the granary was giving people poisoned food. Mtemi did not say it openly, but his people whispered in the market. Neema investigated in public. The roots had come from the wild, not the granary. The family had mixed them with flour to increase the quantity.
Instead of blaming them, they formed groups to identify safe plants. Children were forbidden to dig alone. Bibi Amina drew marks for dangerous leaves on a board.
When Rashid returned from Kizinga, he brought medicinal salt and beans. He also brought news that other towns had shut sick people outside their gates for fear of disease.
“What will we do if it reaches us?” the Chifu asked.
Neema said, “We will set aside a treatment house near the old well. We will not drive the sick into the road.”
“And who will pay?”
“The council, the granary, and the caravans that use the market.”
Rashid agreed to pay a small fee for every caravan if the house would also care for the porters. Other traders thought it was a burden until fever entered one caravan and stopped its journey for seven days. After that, they did not complain as much.
Bi. Rehema, who knew the weakness of being ill without food, took shifts at the treatment house. Neema feared the fever would return, but her mother said, “You fought for me when I was in bed. Do not lock me away now that I can stand.”
The house was not a large hospital. It had two mud rooms, mat beds, clean water, and people who recorded who received what. But it kept medicine from being sold at famine prices and kept patients from disappearing without names.
Neema understood that a fair market could not have the correct measure for grain while leaving a person's body outside the accounts.
Life had needs of its own.
And sometimes the final measure was not a measure of grain, but a bowl of water that reached someone before their breath ran out.
---
Within ten days, children's bellies began to swell. The elderly sat in the shade to save their strength. People dug up roots that were normally food for goats.
The women's granary began distributing porridge every morning. Each family received an amount based on the number of children and elderly people. Neema insisted that the names be read before everyone so that no one took a second share.
Mtemi opened his shop for only a few hours each day. His price was one measure of millet for one goat, or one measure for ten days of work.
People formed lines.
Neema saw men who had once laughed at her pressing their fingerprints onto agreements they could not read.
She went to the Chifu.
“Open the caves.”
“They have a document.”
“The document bears your nephew's seal from after he was removed from power.”
“He is still my blood.”
“And those who are dying are your people.”
The Chifu clenched his jaw. “If you break a trader's granary without the law, no caravan will trust us tomorrow.”
“If they trust us because we protect hidden grain while children die, what is that trust worth?”
The Chifu stepped toward her. “What do you really want, Neema? My seat?”
Neema was surprised, then understood. The Chifu did not see only a granary or hunger. He saw people listening to a poor girl more than they listened to him.
“I do not want your seat,” she said. “I want you not to sit on top of graves.”
The Chifu sent her away from the council hall.
That evening, Rashid bin Suleiman arrived with a few porters. He did not have a large caravan; he had come ahead from the town of Kizinga, where there were reserves of cassava and millet.
“I heard Mbuyuni is hungry,” he said.
“We are hungry, and there is grain hidden here,” Neema replied.
Rashid listened to the story of the caves.
“I can bring six hundred measures from Kizinga within fourteen days,” he said. “But I need payment or collateral.”
“We do not have enough money.”
“How many members does your granary have?”
“One hundred and thirteen.”
“If they pledge the future harvest?”
“We do not know whether it will rain.”
“Business is a risk.”
“A risk that pays you even if we die is not business. It is a trap.”
Rashid smiled tiredly. “You still have the same tongue.”
“And you still have eyes that count every breath.”
After long negotiations, they agreed: Rashid would bring the grain; the granary would pay half after six months and the other half after a year, without taking land or people as collateral.
In return, he would have the right to buy part of the extra harvest at the market price, not at a price fixed in advance.
Mzee Salim wrote the agreement. It was read aloud before the members.
“Why is he agreeing?” Mama Naliaka asked afterward.
“Because if he saves us today, we will do business with him tomorrow,” Neema said. “Not every profit is theft. The difference is whether both sides can say no.”
Rashid left that night.
But Mtemi had heard about their plan.
Two days later, messengers arrived from Kizinga saying that the eastern road had been blocked by armed men. They claimed that Chifu Baraka had forbidden grain from entering without a heavy emergency tax.
The Chifu denied giving that order.
The seal on the message was his.
Once again, a genuine seal had been used to tell a lie.
Jabali had returned.
---