People of Tanzania: Enock, the Hardware Guy
Enock is a businessman, or a mfanya biashara as he says in Swahili. For six days a week, he manages a little hardware store in Dar es Salaam. Under the term businessman in the west, you imagine the suit, the tie, the dress shoes, maybe the slicked back hair and a smart phone. Enock keeps his attire simpler than that: polo shirt (old), shorts, sandals. In the west, you would have to invent the company that allows his dress code.
The store doesn’t have a name, address, and wouldn’t be found in the yellow pages any more than you would find elephant trainers or snake charmers. It is your typical bricks and mortar shop, of which there are thousands in Bongo—that is a little brick, some plywood, and a lot of tin roof. And merchandise. As much merchandise as you can stuff in a twelve by ten meter space.
At 55, Enock is older than most of his counterparts working at other stores. He has curly hair, although he’s lost most of it at the front, plus long hanging cheekbones that give him a slight bulldog look. He’s a little heavy set and walks with a slight limp, the result of a motorcycle accident from decades ago. He was reminded of his—for Tanzania—advanced age recently when he was hospitalized for malaria. ‘I have not been hospitalized since my motorcycle accident,’ he remembers. ‘But here I thought I was going to die. Malaria does that to you. And if you survive, you will know just how quickly you can go.’
Like most people I’ve talked to here in Dar es Salaam, Enock is laid back, always good for a joke, but also the first to admit the serious nature of things whenever required. He does not own the store, he says, he only manages it. This means that on certain days he will act as general manager, receiving clerk, supply clerk, and cashier all rolled into one. If Zainab the cashier does show up for work—which, fortunately, is on most days—Enock will comb through the neighborhood for deals and for any hint about what the latest trends are. Does the competition have 5,000 liter water barrels instead of the 2,500 liter barrels that he stocks? Do the bigger barrels actually sell? What plumbing supplies are bought these days, and what is their resale value? Enock explains all of this as we look at the store. 'I sold five elbow spouts the other day to this mzungu,’ he explains proudly. ‘I don’t know what he used them for. Only that I was lucky to have stocked them.’
Enock understands he will never prosper from what he’s doing. On average, his take home pay per day is 40,000 Tanzanian Shillings —roughly 25 dollars. And yet, he claims, it’s still more than what most people are making in the neighborhood. ‘You have a lot of younger, stronger people out there doing what I am doing,’ he says, ‘and they don’t make as much as I do. A lot of them don’t come from Bongo (Dar es Salaam). They don’t know that you must look elsewhere for extra income.’
That extra income can come in many forms, like scrap metal that can be found at dumpsites. A few weeks back, he had found four used tires, including the tire irons, that had been dumped behind his hardware shed. Enock couldn’t believe his good fortune. ‘Tire irons go for a lot of money here in Bongo,’ he says with a smile. ‘I promise you that those weren’t poor locals who dumped those tires. My family ate very well that week.’
Enock has one daughter, aged seven, he sheepishly tells me. ‘I married very late. A lot of people in Bongo think that’s my granddaughter.’ He shows me a photo of his daughter, Monica, from his cellphone. Monica is waving back at the camera, an unidentified friend lurking in the background. ‘She is everything to me,’ he admits. ‘I can’t believe I almost went my whole life without children. God is great.’
A group of young men linger nearby, their destination unknown. It seems that with each few steps they walk, they will immediately retrace them as if any progress were scoffed at within the group. The truth is, Enock says, is that they probably have no place to go. ‘I feel bad for them,’ he says. ‘They are in the spring of their lives, and there is no work for them, no future.’
On a more analytical note, he blames the massive unemployment on the government. ‘Those people see power as an opportunity to enrich themselves,’ he complains. ‘They have their palaces in Greece and Turkey, money in Swiss banks while their people here suffer. They tell people to take care of themselves while their bellies get bigger by the hour. Shameful. Just shameful.’
Up the road, Enock eyes what appears to be a rubbish pile. The typical rubbish pile deposited in no man’s land consists of things no longer useful to anyone. There is a broken bucket split down the middle, plastic bottles, some old produce—a compost and trash pile in one. Enock dusts off an item he’s found next to the pile. It’s a bag of Omo detergent, the top sealed shut with a clothespin. ‘Look here,' he says, ‘that bag is half full. That must be half a kilo. My wife will love this.’
Despite the day in and day out hardships, Enock doesn’t want to be anywhere else. ‘This is home,’ he says. ‘Some of my family have gone to South Africa, others made it to Spain. I don’t know what I would do there.’ Returning to the store, Enock sees that Zainab is ready to call it a day. ‘Baadaye,’ he tells her, as in later.
For the rest of the day, he’ll shoot the breeze with fellow merchants on the block here, bargain with a last customer there, only to go home, wake up in the morning, and do it all over again the next day. ‘Don’t waste any time thinking about what you don’t have,’ he advises. ‘Be happy you are working and that you have something to get up in the morning for. It’s more than I can say for most people in this city.’ Said with a smile, not a frown.
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