It's hard to believe that I only have three more days in Abidjan. I can't say that I'm not glad to go home. It will nice to be able to relax on my couch with my husband and my dog for a little while and be the master of my schedule again. Having to rely on other people to set up meetings and cart me around has gotten old. I'll also be glad to get home so I can process all that has happened in these two and a half weeks.
One portion of this adventure that I absolutely need to process is the market experience yesterday. We decided to go to Adjame market, which is the busiest market in Abidjan, to find some more fabrics for Amy. Amy has become obsessed with African fabrics. I don't blame her; they're beautiful (Side note, our African outfits turned out awesome). In any case, we were going to be Big Girls and go to the market by ourselves, but the manager of the hotel was nice enough to come with us. This ended up being both a good and bad decision.
The market pretty much defies description, but I will do my best. To set the scene for the market, picture a long boulevard with small access streets running parallel with the main boulevard. Add in 100s of stalls/vendors/guys on blankets set up on each side of the main road. All of the merchants hawk their wares as you walk by and try to get into your face about buying their product over the person next door. Next, add 1000s of people bustling about. I am not exaggerating when I say 1000s. This is the largest market in town and it sells everything. Everything from fabric and clothes, to food, to electronics, to steroids. That's right. Steroids. Women walk about carrying purchases or wares on their heads, children run around after their mothers, men push huge wooden cards stacked high with all sorts of things--buckets, bags of stuff, yams, whatever. Next, I want you to envision the worst rotting thing you have ever smelled. Now think of it sitting outside in 90 degree heat. That's pretty much the smell of the dumpsters at the market. I am glad that I did not eat lunch before heading out.
For the most part, the market was perfectly lovely and slightly overwhelming at first. The colors of all the fabrics were beautiful and it was an interesting social study to watch all of the people at the market. At one store, we learned that one of the fabric lines was called the "Obama" because it had come out just around the time Obama was elected. This was all fine and dandy. However, at one point our manager took us down a small side street. When I say small, I mean it was more of a stone alleyway than a street. Because of all the vendors, we had to turn sideways to walk down it and avoid some sort of creepy liquid running toward a drain (I am so glad that I have no idea what that liquid was). What met us at the other end of the side street could only be described as chaos. There were people of every walk of life. It was the first time I had seen a woman in a burqa in CI as the Muslims here tend to not be very strict in their beliefs. Men cried out at us to buy fabric or hats from their stalls. Young teenagers held out pictures. I'm not totally sure what the pictures were for nor am I certain that I want to know what they were for. Women stopped at stalls and walked past you holding their baskets above their heads to avoid them from spilling into the streets.
There were people everywhere and barely enough room to walk. I'm not big on crowds to begin with, so this was a nightmare. It was a warren of food vendors, clothes vendors, and random odds and ends vendors. Without our hotel manager we would not have survived. However, without our hotel manager, we would have stayed on the main drag. I can remember only a handful of times when I was more alert than I was in that market. At one point, Amy got separated from us because she got stuck behind a guy pushing an ancient wooden cart. It was bad news. I almost went into an autistic style meltdown with all of the sensory overload. Not good at all. It was a panicked moment for me watching Amy try to fight her way toward us. Our hotel manager seemed fine and like this was no big deal. But, it was like fighting a rip current to get through the crowd of people. I've never gone shopping on Black Friday, but I am going to assume that that's what it's like. Only this was an every day occurrence. If I were ever to live in CI, I would have to be rich enough to send someone out to do my shopping for me. I like to think of myself as pretty adaptable, but I don't think I would ever be able to adapt to that. I've been Western for too long and I don't know if I could change my habits enough to survive.
When got out of the crazy labyrinth, we told the hotel manager that we needed to go back to the hotel for some lunch. I have never been so happy to see a cab (especially with all of the terrible luck we've had with cabs) in my life. Back at the hotel,we rested and ate for a little bit before we got our dresses from the dress maker. Thankfully, the dresses turned out AWESOME so there was at least one good thing came out of yesterday. Oh yes, and our team returned. I was so happy to see Murtala and our philosopher monk friend. Granted, the philosopher monk is neither a philosopher nor a monk, but he just looks like one. Anyway, off to work for me on a Sunday!
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