AFTER A VERY long time, my friends and I decided to meet up. I was unfortunate enough to be the first one to reach our appointed meeting point. I scanned the venue frantically, as it was packed with romancing couples and loud dining families.As I sat down to my Coke, two kids materialised at my table, one a little girl not more than seven years of age, the other a tomboy of about nine. Not that I’m so fond with kids, but I still managed to smile back when they smiled at me. The younger girl smiled back and immediately joined my table. I asked her name. “Saida,” she said.At that moment, the other one also joined us. I asked her name too, and she replied “Mable”, as if on cue. “Oh! Even my name is Mable,” I said with mock smiles at the kids. They told me they were here for ice cream, but that they’d lost their money en route.“Oh? So sad!” I said and instantly watched as their eyes lit up with expectation. I felt like treating them to an ice-cream cone each -poor kids..but something within stopped me. “How much was it?” I enquired. “My mother gave me Rwf1,000 and now when I go back, she will ask me for the rest of the money.” Saida replied I was yet to sense anything wrong, until the other girl, the tomboy said; “She is scared of her mother and she fears to go home.” “Yes, my mother had given me to have ice-cream and had asked for the rest of the money,” the girl repeated. I was wondering what was more important to her - the ice-cream or the rest of the money.I asked, “Are you sisters?”, and their response was instant and simultaneous. “She is my neighbor”, Saida offered, while the other girl said they were cousins.I asked if they frequented the joint often, and the girl with the lost money claim said; “No, we have come here only today. My mother did not have money even to pay the rent. She had given me Rwf1,000 for ice-cream then bring back her balance.”“I think you should be punished so that you don’t lose money again. Bye!” I said leaving the place in haste. As I walked my friends into the place minutes later, I saw the two girls sitting at some other table chatting with a family.
