Seeds of Plenty Read Online Free PDF Page B

blackcurrant Ribena juice, cans of Spam, butter cookies as well as chocolate and champagne. In 1973, the shelves were stocked full of imported items. Nigeria, drunk on its newly discovered oil, embarked on a shopping spree. Still, Sylvia rarely found anything to buy at the supermarket. It was mostly coveted Western food, nothing she found appetizing. She rarely came into the supermarket, preferring the far more “superior” market outside.
    They walked up to the lunch bar located at the back of the store. Sylvia sat down on one of the torn plastic yellow stools at the Formica bar. She felt uncomfortable, wondering what she was doing here with this man. She unfolded a sandalwood fan that she kept in her purse and fanned herself nervously.
    “Two cokes and some chin-chin, eh? Bring it fast fast de lady is hot and thirsty,” Ayo said to the barman in the local pidgin English. Born in two different worlds, he could easily switch between the local pidgin to perfect BBC English.
    “Most of the other wives are bloody frightened of coming out of the compound,” he said with a laugh. “That lot can’t handle the dirt, bits of rotting garbage, throngs of people. But you, you don’t seem to mind.”
    “It’s not that different from where I’m from. We’ve got markets just like this in Hong Kong.”
    The barman brought their drinks and chin-chin. She wiped the top of the coke bottle with a napkin from her purse and took a long sip.
    “So I take it, you’re surviving here then?” Ayo ate the crunchy sweet squares known as chin-chin, a popular local snack made from fried dough.
    “I suppose…,” she paused.
    “Suppose it must be hard for you with your husband gone all the time,” he said.
    She pushed stray strands of hair away from her face, embarrassed that she was such an open book to him.
    “Look, is everything alright?” Ayo asked. “Pardon my prying, but I’m a doctor, and I must ask.”
    “Oh no, I mean yes. My husband’s a good man.” She realized as a doctor, Ayo probably had protocols for dealing with wives running away in the middle of the night.
    “Right, I’m glad to hear that. But honestly, if you need anything, anything at all, even just someone to chat with, please do call.” He took out a worn business card from his wallet and handed it to her.
    “You don’t need to worry about me. You probably have other lives to save.”
    He suddenly looked as if he were in pain. “I might save one or two, but the rest I fail,” he muttered, looking down, the muscles in his arm clenching the sides of his chair. “It’s the novice doctor in me I suppose, still unused to the inevitable deaths on my watch.” She guessed he was probably in his late twenties, and this was his first assignment out of medical school.
    “I always wanted to be a nurse,” Sylvia said, her voice resigned as if the dream was in the past and would stay that way.
    “You should come to the clinic some time and volunteer. We’re always short-handed and could use an extra pair of hands.” He looked straight into her eyes.
    “I don’t know…I can’t…I can’t leave my baby just yet,” she said, but he had stirred something in her long forgotten.
    “Of course. Whenever you’re ready, we’re always here.”
    “I have to go, but I wanted to thank you…for everything.” She suddenly got up from her stool. She held his business card tightly in her hand, the paper getting damp from her sweat.
    “No need.” He touched her bare arm.
    Hours later, as she bathed, she would remember the brief touch of his hand, the spicy aromatic scent of the sandalwood soap reminiscent of her fan, and the promise of something.
     
     

WINSTON

Chapter 5
    Winston drove down a nameless dirt road through the jungle, the vines and branches striking the sides of his Landrover. He glanced into the forest, the shapeless trees covered in thick vine seemed dark and claustrophobic to him. As he made his way deeper into the forest, the foliage closed in