But the bills nevertheless mounted up so yesterday it dawned on me that we could of course use our own cart with Dolly the donkey and employ our own labourers directly: this would be by far the cheapest solution. But Ace said: 'it won’t be the same thing. The day labourers we hire in the market place will not be able to bring as much as the marabou’s carts.'
‘But why not?’ I asked. ‘Because the labourers who bring the earth now are simply shovelling loose earth onto the cart. This earth has already been dug up and crushed since five in the morning or so by the marabou's little talibé boys. In that way they earn him some money before they start on their morning rounds begging for food.’
The sizeable amount of money which we have paid out for the land fill has gone straight into the pocket of a marabou who doesn’t even feed the little boys that work for him! I told Ace that if it took longer with our own cart and day labourers that would be just fine.
(for marabou or marabouts and talibés or mendiants (mendicants) look up in blog search above)