Le Marché

Something that was hard for me to get used to was the fact that there aren't really stores where I can buy things that I need. There are a few boutiques around town that sell dry goods, but most things require a trip to the marché, the village market. Whereas American stores generally aim to make the shopping experience as impersonal as possible (automated checkout?), everything is about the people here.

Vegetable lady was really excited about me taking a picture with her cabbages

December marks the end of the harvest season in Burkina, meaning that everyone suddenly has a lot of free time and money. (Noting here that that's in comparative terms. The men ALWAYS have a lot of free time and no one ever has that much money.) As such, my village market has gone from a few vendors with moldy onions and bruised tomatoes to overflowing with cabbages, fresh onions, and a multitude of unidentifiable vegetables. 

The marché only happens once every 3 days no matter the season, and you know it's a marché day because starting around 11, people begin to gather and drink dolo, the local beer that tastes vaguely like apple cider vinegar, under the shaded hangars even more than usual. Lately there has also been music playing from boom boxes and even more people gathered. Things get into full swing around noon and run until 4 or 5 in the afternoon, when everyone starts to pack up. The marché falls on a Sunday once every 21 days, hence Sunday marchés are called the vingt-et-un (21) and are an especially big deal. I don't think they sell more/particularly special stuff. People just get more excited about it for some reason.

Produce is sold under the hangar

Fun fact!: The covered area where ladies sell produce was originally built by the French colonists as a slave market. The history teacher told me so. It doesn't seem that most people are aware.

Most of the marché is sprawled around the slave hangar. The grounds are pretty extensive. Most of the structure is just wooden beams that hold up straw shade coverings, and vendors bring in their own tables/chairs/mats/etc. when they arrive each time. On non-marché days, the ground is completely empty except for a few big clay pots that are too heavy and fragile to move around. Watermelons are in season now, so even on non-marché days there will still be women with donkey carts loaded with watermelons anywhere between the size of your fist and the size of...a watermelon sold whole or by the slice.

Zom and Gurumé, 2 marché regulars

It's pretty funny the random things you can find for sale. They seriously have all kinds of stuff. Besides produce, they also have fabric of all styles, ready-to-wear clothes, flashlights and batteries, soap, pots, all kinds of serving ware, plastic mats and buckets and chairs, jewelry, kola nuts, and the list goes on. Seasonality is a big thing; for example, who would think there was a season for calabash bowls. But I never saw them at the marché before, and suddenly they're everywhere. For some reason, only women sell produce, dairy, and grains. Jewelry and fabric is a middle ground, but everything else is sold by men.

Calabash vendor

One of the interesting things to do is to look at is the stands selling medications. A lot of people don't like going to the health clinic when they're sick because of stigmas, worries about cost, and general lack of understanding of health. Instead, they purchase their own medication at the marché. It's as suspect as you would imagine. There are old men selling small bottles of mysterious brown fluids and odd collections of bark, plant roots, and other unidentified objects; the traditional healers. There are also younger men selling boxes of pills that are supposed to remedy colds, malaria, or whatever else your problem is. The amount of fake Viagra that I've seen makes me wonder a little about the state of men's sexual health here, but the names that they put on the boxes just make it a joke.

Another view

There are specific people that always say hi to me whenever I show up. There's the vegetable lady photographed above, for example, who always greets me super enthusiastically when I walk under the hangar. She used to always give me gifts of free vegetables whether or not I bought anything from her, but she doesn't do that anymore. It was a good business strategy though, I guess. There's also the peanut butter lady. I went over to her house once to see how she made it. Seeing how black the peanuts were by the time she finished roasting them explained a lot about the flavor of her peanut butter. She's really nice though. There's also the ginger juice lady; Zenabo, the big loud lady whose daughter is one of my students and looks just like her; Aisseta, the other big loud lady who sells fabric; and some other people who recognize me but whom I don't recognize. Usually I tell people at the marché that my name is Sibdou, but lately more and more strangers have suddenly been calling me Mariko...I don't know what's up with that.

Peanut butter lady

It's kind of hard to explain how the once-every-3-days market is such a hub of village life, since there's nothing like it in the US. It's a time when the women really are able to get out and socialize, and everyone from all ranks of the community bumps shoulders. It's not the same as your Walmart.

"Will not shut up"