Like most kids, growing up I really loved cold sodas, Orange and coke were my jam. Alternatively, ever since I can remember there were these sachets of soda flavoured powder that drove youngins crazy. They were called "Jolly Jus" though for some reason we called them Supadip. The preparation was super easy, just add the powder in your glass, pour in some water and voila!You got yourself the perfect cheapskate concoction.

Supadip, the Kiddo Drug:

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_{Supadip!(Jolly Jus.)}

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By the time I entered primary I was already familiar with Supadip. Back then a normal Soda cost 150 Rwf(A dollar is worth roughly 987 Rwf, much more back then.) and until they all mysteriously evaporated, one sachet of Supadip had always cost 50 Rwf. To us, it was a heaven sent deal as those sachets hit the spot like nothing else we'd experienced at the time, specially when drank cold after a long day of street football. As you can imagine, aside from the imagined prestige of it all, one of the main reasons why everyone I knew(Myself included, despite not having a sweet tooth.) was addicted was because supadips(SDs) were much more sugary than normal sodas, so much so that parents prefered buying normal sodas for their children on more occasions than they would have wanted.

Consumer turned Merchant:

Fast forward to 2002 I switched schools and went to the Belgian School of Kigali(EBK) where this craze only caught on around 2005, and for some reason the white boys went more coco for coco puffs for SDs than the rest of us. lol And since most said white boys lived in richer areas where finding boutiques in which they sold supadips was rare, well, demand needed supply so we jacked the price on them! I felt bad for them for a second when I first found out about the hustle but, since money was going to be made either way, and that every one at the school was a hustler in some shape or form, full steam ahead I went in that venture.

Some of my fellow entrepreneurs sold their sachets for 200 Rwf, others for 500, I sold mine for 300 and the jig went on for months. Business was booming! Relative to our age we were making insane money, many of our customers becoming "addicted" in the process, some of them eccentric enough to pretend like it was cocaine, licking and sniffing it. But as all songs do, it eventually came to an end. Some clients got caught, some snitches snitched and we found ourselves in boiling water in the principal's office. Luckily, we didn't get suspended, only got warnings.

Surprisingly, even after all that the customers kept coming, business went on as usual for some time, only now it was even more secretive. But surprisingly, prices didn't really go up, probably one of the reasons why we never got caught again. This phase eventually ended, but only because people were moving onto better and colder drinks as we were fast approaching high school.

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_{Soda Cubes - by AbsoluVision - Pixabay.com, CCO}

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Retroactive Market Assessment:

Now that I think about it, it's crazy how there was a whole underworld-esque financial ecosystem at my school in which most students participated in, whether male or female. There were even some lowkey selling alcoholic beverages and condoms among those already in high school. Crazy times!

As for what I usually did with my profits; some went into buying soccer playing cards, some into renting DVDs from the schoolmates that always had the newest movies, and most commonly, to rent PS2 games from mostly our white boys, who also didn't go easy on their pricing. Like I said, it was a self feeding ecosystem, of which the SPK network would be jealous.😂

And yes, most times I still had enough change left after all the trading.