In as much time as I have been here, I haven’t really experienced the markets outside of my contemplative gaze from the bus window. We pass them daily, but I am always on another assignment. All of that changed today.
The markets vary from deplorable conditions (that cause you to take your life in your hands upon entering), to bright organized stands that entice one to explore. There is one outdoor market that we pass downtown that is huge--it has sections for fish, produce, hand crafted items, etc..
No matter what the conditions though, things are piled beautifully--coal, mangoes, carrots...little towers line the table or sheet that is the edge of the person’s “shop”. It seems that the vender with the highest pile of wares is the most desirable--it does get you noticed! The one exception I have seen is the enormous bags of clothing that are being sold in front of this particularly squalid market. The clothes are just dumped into one giant heap and people rummage through them at random. I cannot imagine how they find anything that way.
We have a very sweet lady, Annette, that cooks for us in the evening. She doesn’t speak English at all, but we still laugh and communicate in some small way. She shops daily for what we need and is quite good at bartering. I went with her today to see how she did it and was amazed by the inner workings of that market place. We ducked under the tarps stretched on long poles, a blueish haze lit the faces of the shop keepers. Flies are everywhere and I wonder how more people don’t get sick.
I gawk as we pass a meat stand that is layered with uncovered flesh on top of which sit hundreds of flies. A woman wields a machete and reduces several pork chops to mincemeat. Annette barters for some tomatoes and watercress and the ladies at the next stand ask if I’d like to buy some hair clips “Non Mési” I say and shake my head. While Annette buys some rice, I watch a little boy play dominoes with the little cubes of powered chicken bouillon in his mother’s shop. A dog pants under a nearby stand and everyone fans themselves of the flies that swarm in the unnumbered thousands.
We go back out onto the street where more shops stretch into the distance. A lady pulls a tub off her head to show me her beautiful limes, but unfortunately I have no money with me. I am there purely to observe. No camera, no money, nothing to worry about. At last we have all the rice, bananas and veggies we need and we load back up in the tap-tap for the bumpy ride home.
