One month later, a newly added ferry arrived fuller than usual.
Families, backpackers, and organized groups poured into the terminal.
The market had entered the kind of high-demand period when old shortcuts were most tempting.
The route-rotation system delayed five minutes because one vendor’s hygiene certificate had expired.
Instead of allowing a guide to choose a preferred replacement privately, the system moved the group to the next eligible stall and logged the reason.
Salim complained about the delay.
Kassim shrugged.
“A visible rule is sometimes slower.”
“True.”
Saada Seafood’s public board stood at the entrance.
**Coconut octopus — 31,000.** **Optional group package +5,000: reserved seats + shared juice + coordinated service.**
The point-of-sale system now had separate buttons for base meal, seating, juice, and guide coordination.
Nuru loved it.
“Transparency finally got software.”
Salim brought a group of twelve.
“The base menu is here,” he told them. “The package is optional. My coordination fee is part of the disclosed package, not hidden inside the plate price.”
Eight chose the package.
Four did not.
Mama Saada served both without treating the base customers as a problem.
The kitchen was busy.
Jalia’s stall was busy too.
Route rotation did not make traffic perfectly equal. Reputation, weather, menu, and service still mattered.
That was not a failure.
Neutral access meant no hidden guide veto, not identical revenue.
Fatuma remained successful because customers liked her food. The reform did not punish her for having defended the old system.
Guide earnings changed too. Salim lost some of the high upside from conversion bands but gained clearer, steadier coordination fees.
“Less money on the best weeks,” he told Rehema. “Less strange pressure every week.”
The ferry-terminal visitor-information board had become Rehema’s project.
It was independent of the market association and had no vendor-ranking power.
It displayed: public menu links, package explanations, complaint QR code, refund rules, and ferry safety-route notices.
Rehema refused to publish a “cheapest stall” ranking. That would simply create a new distortion.
Around midday, a complaint arrived.
A visitor had been charged twice for juice inside a package.
Rehema opened a reference number.
The stall was not Saada Seafood.
The complaint desk traced the problem to a point-of-sale template error. The vendor acknowledged it. The visitor received a refund within an hour. The template was corrected and the error appeared on the aggregate dashboard.
No worker name was published.
No one needed a viral scandal.
Kileo came to the ferry desk later.
“The dashboard shows an error today. People will say the reform is failing.”
“An error that gets corrected is evidence the process exists.”
“You like unresolved things visible.”
“Yes.”
He laughed.
At the end of the day Mama Saada brought Rehema a plate of food.
“Have you seen my sales?”
“I do not need your daily numbers.”
Her mother laughed.
“You were right about one menu.”
“The package still has a different price.”
“But it explains itself.”
“Yes.”
That was the point.
The reforms had not made the island perfect.
Kileo was still on the board while elections approached.
Vendors still argued about margins.
Guides still complained about commissions.
Customers still made mistakes.
The difference was that the rules were visible enough to argue about.
As sunset approached, a family came to the information desk with the last receipt of the day.
They were not angry.
“We only want to know whether this extra amount is correct.”
Rehema looked at the public menu version recorded for that time.
Base fish plate: 31,000. Reserved seating: 2,000. Shared juice: 2,000. Guide coordination: 1,000.
The total was higher than a walk-in’s bill.
Every line matched the menu.
“Did you choose the group package?” Rehema asked.
“Yes.”
“Then the total is correct. If you had not agreed to it, the complaint desk could review the charge.”
The visitor nodded.
“We just wanted to understand.”
That was the same sentence hidden inside the first complaint one month earlier.
Rehema closed the information board after they left.
A month ago, two totals had forced her to choose between family loyalty and public duty.
Now different totals could exist without asking a visitor to trust a hidden stamp.
Fairness had never required every person to pay the same number.
It required the number to have a visible reason, a genuine choice, and a route for correction when the system got it wrong.
Rehema picked up a copy of the final receipt before returning it.
The price could be different.
Rehema’s visitor-information board deliberately avoided recommending which stall was cheapest or best. Such rankings would have created another hidden influence over traffic and another conflict with her mother’s business. Instead, the board linked to public menus and explained how to compare base prices, packages, and complaint routes. The choice kept her role informational rather than commercial. She had refused the association compliance title for the same reason: the safest ending was not to place a supposedly good person at the center, but to reduce how much any one person could quietly shape the market.
The new board also published one sentence Rehema had insisted on during drafting: **A different total is not automatically an unfair total. Ask what the difference buys.** She wanted visitors to know that the reform was not a promise of one universal price. It was a promise that a package, surcharge, or service difference could be explained before payment and challenged afterward. That wording mattered to Mama Saada too. It allowed her to keep selling a real group service without returning to a hidden code. The family business did not have to become identical to every other stall in order to become understandable.
But now every line explained why.