When I was 12, I spent my free time obsessing over the Lord of the Rings.

Three nights ago, I was served dinner on the street by a 13-year-old girl. She commanded the stall where she sold salad, ordering who I assumed were her younger siblings to fetch the mayonnaise she had forgotten at the house. She was the oldest person around, and I when I left at 19:15, would still be there, selling rice and cheese and salad and pate three hours later.

Two mornings ago, I watched 11 and 12-year-old girls run alongside my taxi selling peanuts and palm fruit as we slowed to pass over the speed bumps before the tollbooth. It was 11:35. I can only assume that it was the beginning of what would be a long day.

Today, I was still pondering the question that these two circumstances had planted in my head: How had these girls ended up spending their adolescence selling food for fractions of a dollar to passers-by?