Movement 1:1

The cacophony increases as new guests walk in and out of the market from the downstage left to downstage right.

(Trader 1 dances carefully as she arranges her goods. )

Customer 1: Good afternoon madam!

Trader 1: Good after? Ah! My customer.

Customer 1: Oh! It is not noon yet?

Trader 1: Good afternoon jare. All good is good.

Trader 2: Abi oh! (The three of them burst into short raging laughter)

(Trader 1 and Trader 2 exchange unpleasant eye contact)

Trader 1: What do you want to buy my dear customer? (Reduces her voice)

Customer 1: What else? Food of course. That's all the children do best; make a man like me a customer of food sellers.

Trader 1: Of course; you brought them into this World. Eh, but it should have been on your wife, not you. (Continues to arrange her goods)

Customer 1: She is working too. Besides, it is never the job of any gender to do that. (Trader 1 pauses) Yes! (She continues ) Anyway, how much for a bag of rice?

(Trader 1 picks up a piece of paper containing her price list and pretends to read from it.)

Trader 1: Well, my dear customer, rice is very costly now oh. Okay, it is still thirty-five thousand for a bag.

Customer 1: Thirty-five thousand naira?

Trader 1: Yes oh!

Customer 1: How do you increase the price every day, customer?

Trader 1: It is not me oh. It is the people who are driving this country. They have driven it crazy. Ask the whole seller, he will tell you that the price has increased from the producer; ask the producer, he will tell you that the price has increased from the farmer; ask the farmer, he will narrate how the price increases due to the increase in hunger. And, who causes the increase in hunger?