Market

Since we weren’t 100% satisfied with the freggetable salad that Bintou made for us last week, I decided to work from home today and show her exactly what we wanted. When she arrived this morning, I told her nicely and jokingly that we were surprised by the salad she made last week and I clarified the situation by retelling what we wanted. I also took the opportunity to go to the local market with Bintou to see where she buys the meats and veggies. I jumped on the back of her moto and she took us on a bumpy road farther from the closet goudron(paved road) for about 10 mins. People were looking at us and certainly wondering what this Malian young lady was doing with this white man on the back. We drove directly into the market honking so people would let us pass. In the middle of the market we stopped at a stand where 2 big pieces of meat were hanging with flies flying around. She asked me for the money and then gave the traditional salutations to the only guy at the market. It is so rare to find men at the market- working or purchasing. The man chopped a first piece and then a second, weighed it and added a few pieces of some kind of skin or greasy part to get to the right weight. Bintou paid him and she turned to face me and said “On y va!” I looked around and saw only women selling all kinds of foods: pieces of fish, bananas peanuts on plates. Then we stopped at another stand where there were a dozen tomatoes and a few other veggies I’ve never seen before. Bintou took 5 or 6 tomatoes and paid with a 50 franc coin which was so old that it was completely smoothe. Sometimes with some of the coins it is really difficult to tell, because people have been using them for so long that we cannot see anything on it any more. Also the small denominations of bills and coins are really difficult to find as the only place they are used is in the markets and if you live here and never go to the market you might never see them.
Finally we went to this other stand where there were a few bags of dry spices, a dozen cubes of beef broth, and a big can of tomato paste. Bintou ask in Bambara for ome tomato paste and instead of getting a whole tin, the women took a spoon of the paste and put it in plastic wrap. At the same time Bintou was looking at the cubes and took 3. She quickly negotiated the price and she finally gave her 200 francs. We jumped on the bike and went back to the house on the dirt road trying to avoid the big holes. A very interesting morning for me!
Thomas
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