Market

 Going to the store takes on an entirely different meaning here.  This is my third time volunteering in West Africa and I still can't get used to it.  At home you go to one store to do your shopping.  We complain about the isles and how the bread should be at the end so it doesn't get squished by everything else in your cart.  Imagine that there isn't a cart.  The streets are filled with thousands and thousands of people selling things.  Some sell out of baskets they carry on their head.  The ladies with a giant tower of eggs carefully balanced on their head, gracefully weave in and out of traffic and the crowds.  How do they do that?  Some are in wooden stalls set up on the "sidewalk"  I guess it is a sidewalk, but mostly it is broken concrete slabs that the sewer runs under, and cars still drive on it anyway.  You have to pay taxes on things you sell in a set up stall, so some simply lay the products down and pick them up when a car gets to close or when they see the police walking near.  It is amazing to walk through, but I can't imagine trying to buy anything.  Nothing is a set price.  You barter for every tube of toothpaste or live chicken that you need to buy.  Yep you read that right.  Today a lady walked by with a plastic bag containing one LIVE chicken.  Christina believes that it is her pet and I didn't have the heart to tell her that it was dinner.  Now that I think about it, we had chicken for dinner tonight so it could have been our dinner.  On one side of the street today was all different kinds of fish.  Fish.  Sitting on boxes in the open air with people calling out to us just in case we want to buy them.  Thankfully the ship shop restocked us on chocolate because if I was ever temped to snack on a fish while walking through the market I'd have to rethink my life.  The market constantly amazes me.  Once you get used to the honking horns (it is constant here) and learn to swerve around vehicles, other people walking, men pushing full carts, and avoiding the giant gaps where the concrete "sidewalk" has broken and not fall into the sewer, the market is a lot of fun.  Someday I will make a list and go to the market and do my shopping. Just in case you are wondering.... there will NOT be any live chickens on my list.