Shopping Adventures

The first Wednesday here was a shopping day (We’re eleven hours ahead of you guys here, so, if I ever refer to days that you haven’t had yet, that’s why.) Out of my team of eight, there is one person who actually likes shopping, so, devoting an entire day to it was a little rough.

We started out at the open air market, which was actually kind of cool, at least for the first while. Just the day before, we had been to that same spot, (one of the stops in our “amazing race”) but there had been nothing there.

Apparently, the vendors don’t actually have city licenses to be there, so, every once in a while, the city council come by and order the entire market emptied. Any pictures you’ve seen of overseas (especially African and Near Eastern markets) will give you a good idea of what the market looked like. The place was absolutely teaming with vendors and goods for sale, but, the day before, it had been empty. I don’t know how they do it, but it is impressive.

The smells in the market are constantly changing. The shoe stands smell like hot leather and soap, because the vendors are constantly scrubbing off dirt with a brush and warm, soapy water to keep the shoes looking new, even after being tried on and hauled back and forth to market. The sugar cane cart smells faintly sweet, and the scent follows you, clinging to your sticky fingers even after you have sucked out all of the juice and spit the last of the fibrous pulp into the dirt. The pools of water that linger in the shaded ditches between stands give off a slightly sour smell. And the smoke from the charcoal maker’s stands competes with the acrid smoke from the piles of trash that are burning in back corners where someone has decided to clean up a little.

Between the market and the Nakumatt (kind of like the Kenyan version of WalMart or Target) we got everything that we’ll need for the next sixteen months but wont be able to get easily (pillows, mosquito nets, dishes, toilet seats, mirrors, peanut butter, shampoo, etc).