Excerpt from This House Is Not for Sale by E.C. Osondu, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Whoever thought of putting people in that box must indeed be a wizard, one of the householders would remark.

That is what I keep telling our people, the white people have their own witchcraft but they don't kill their brothers and sisters with it, they invent things like the airplane and the car and this gramophone.

At this point a bottle of half-drunk aromatic schnapps still in its original carton would appear, and drinking would commence while the gramophone made music. Cash would occasionally bring out a record to play. He would begin by introducing the musician. Some of the artists were from the Congo and sang in Lingala. Even though Cash had never been to the Congo he would sometimes translate these songs, especially after a few shots of schnapps:

I am but a poor orphan
My mother saved and scraped to buy me a guitar
I will never forget my mother's sacrifice
I will play this guitar until I die.

Rotate Provision and Fancy Store was everything Cash Provision Store wasn't. Take the word Fancy that was a part of its name. People wondered what the word Fancy meant at first, but were not left to wonder for long. Not only did Rotate stock and sell provisions, but he also sold baby clothes, and women's hats and gowns and shoes—these were the fancy goods, according to him.

Cash prided himself on the fact that he sold in cash, hence his nickname, as opposed to credit. Rotate did not mind offering credit and would quickly write down the customer's name and how much was owed in a blue-ruled Olympic Exercise notebook. The only proviso was that customers had to pay a little against what they owed before he could offer more credit.

Rotate installed his own gramophone in his store and hung both loudspeakers from the door. His gramophone was always playing music. He played not only highlife, but also some Western music by KC and the Sunshine Band and Sonya Spence and Don Williams and Skeeter Davis and Bobby Bare.

A bottle of watered-down gin filled with anti-malaria herbs was placed on a table in the store. Customers who had no money could have a free shot of watered-down gin, listen to music, and chat. Some ended up buying an item even if it was just a cigarette.

While Cash closed his store as soon as darkness came, Rotate lived in his store and encouraged people to knock on his window at any time if they needed to buy something. Rotate also had a medicine box out of which he sold tablets. Just tell him what ails you and he'll mix some tablets that'll cure you, people said about Rotate. People no longer talked in whispers about how Rotate got his name or made the money with which he opened his Provision and Fancy Store. They all knew he had made his money from a marijuana farm. When news of the farm reached the ears of the police, a detachment of policemen was sent to arrest him. According to people who were there, the police inspector who led the team had asked Rotate if he did not know that it was illegal to plant marijuana.

"No, sir, I did nothing wrong. I was only practicing crop rotation."

"What do you mean by crop rotation?"

"Well, sir, in school we were taught in agricultural science that it was not good for the soil to plant only one kind of crop from year to year so I decided to rotate the crops. Yam last year, marijuana this year, and corn next year," he shot back.

He was arrested and detained at the police headquarters, but he bribed the police and was released.


When Gramophone heard that another store had opened he went to congratulate the new owner and even sat down ready to share drinks. He knew Rotate's story. Unlike Rotate, he had made his own money by using his bicycle to ferry items to distant markets for female traders. But he believed in live and let live. Rotate did not offer Cash any drinks. According to Cash, the man had rejected his extended hand of fellowship.

Excerpted from This House Is Not for Sale by E.C. Osondu. Copyright © 2015 by E.C. Osondu. Excerpted by permission of Harper. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.