market
This morning on my way back from the internet I heard music in the street. In the middle of the day! This is unusual for sure. I saw one of my little friends dancing in the street and she shouted to greet me, “weeen-ee!” As I looked out over town, I saw the bustle and remembered that every 12th of the month, there is a market, a HUGE market. It was unusually cool out. I followed the music to the main drag of town and that’s when I understood: this is where people get everything. There were piles of veggies and purses, tables of boxes of medicine and sex accessories (which I was specifically invited to peruse), tarps full of napping people and jelly shoes, machetes, a huge variety of skin lightening crèmes, plastic buckets, cleaning supplies and mountains of clothes in front of selected items that are hung from a makeshift fence. Along the sides are “restaurants” that have opened up for the day. There are generators blasting music of gospel in English, trance and different kinds of African music all competing for your attention. A woman sits under a sun-brella with a sewing machine. There are kids with bottles of cold but dirty water in bowls on their heads, peanuts, sodas, and atangas – both raw and ready to eat – floating through the crowd.
The sheer number of people was incredible. People from all over, little girls with fancy short coifs, lots of French-speaking people, young pregnant women in hot dresses. This is not the usual make-up of the town. You have to understand that Evinayong, while well paved, is a small rural village. The most people I ever see are when I go out in the morning before school starts. Kids mainly.
I walked down the market street slowly, savoring the feast. With the 300 CFAs (65¢) in my backpack I bought an orange that was already cut-peeled. But then it sits around getting dirty, so I peeled the white stuff off. It was sour and full of seeds but juicy.
It was like the traveling circus had arrived and brought with it all of it’s magic and possibility. In one last branch of the market I heard wonderful music and started to follow it up the street. As I bobbed along an old woman sitting on the curb saw me, danced at me and smiled. I smiled and danced back at her, a little. An invitation to dance is the best thing I can think of. I almost cried, which happens when I am really happy sometimes. People and music! I went home with a silly grin on my face the whole way.
Simon and I returned for a delicious lunch of barbecued chicken wings with mayo, onions and picante del pays (the hottest sh*t around). We sat in the back of the market stall with a bunch of locals who stared as we devoured the chicken on the bone and licked our fingers. It started to rain and he drank a coke and bought veggies while I looked through moldy smelling purses. In the end we got some basil that I cooked up tonight for a spicy coconut stew of bell peppers, onions, tomatoes and pinapple over rice noodles. It was delicious.
This day gave me much hope. There is so much apathy here it is contagious. The day often begins with box-wine drinking before going into the jungle. No one likes to work or do much of anything that they don’t have to. Maybe it’s a remnant of living under colonial rule and then non-colonial dictatorship for so long? Classic responses to how are you?: poco bien, aguantando. Look it up. It’s hard to keep a good attitude and an open heart when there is resistance at every turn. But this is the real work, no? On days like today, with one magical moment, I remember that it all is worth it.