Market Day
Shopping Made Easy?
Makola Market has what you want, what you didn’t know you wanted, and plenty of stuff you definitely don’t want.
Fabric in a variety of colors, textures, cloth, patterns. Bought: army green material for twirly, full skirt (only later realizing I needed an extra ½ yard to make it flouncey like I wanted). Khaki for capris. Grey for pants if there’s enough material, a skirt if not. Some purple-blue patterned for a tank top. On another trip we had bought solid colored fabric that we thought would be good for light-weight tank tops, only to discover this time that they’re usually lining. Oh well, still think it’ll make a good shirt on its own…
Hair clips wanted: only Multi-colored Ugly found.
Shampoo: avocado scented Sunsilk or Dark & Lovely? No thanks.
Next we headed over to the Obruni Waywo area. Translation: dead white people’s clothing. Re-translation: second-hand clothes.
Along the way was a gauntlet. Men standing in a row with a few items to thrust out at you. Many, many arm-grabs. (Sorry, Charlie, but that will not get me to look at your wares!) I think Jane, Manon and I had similar natural reactions: a quick twist of the arm, perhaps a slight downwards push, to remove the offending hand. It’s not just foreigners that get the hands though; I was watching. But it was only we foreigners that got particularly bothered by the space-invasion. (Another annoyance, when shaking hands, the men always hold onto your hand for a painfully long time.)
The Obruni Waywo area was like Goodwill or Salvation army, only stalls upon stalls of clothing in narrow allies under a tent-like roof. Clothes were heaped upon the floor, but we focused on the few hanging up that could easily be seen. We were in search of the ever-elusive swimwear and managed to find it after at least 6 requests that resulted in 6 fingers pointing in different directions. On the way, there were a slew of tailors at their ancient machines, cages of chickens, a few goats and a man pounding fufu (using a big wooden pole to mash the cassava). The bathing suit selections were minimal, but I bought a striped string bikini (my 3-year old polka dot one has lost its shape). Normally, in the States, a bathing suit is the most difficult thing to shop for. It requires a trip to every possible store, trying all available styles on in front of the mirror and much rumination.
Not so here. You see it, you buy it, un-tried-on. Hesitate and it’s gone. You have to have a very keen eye and, like a raven, anything that glitters in the sunlight at a distance gets a second-look. “Free for looking, my friend” (oh wait, that expression is Egyptian). Everything I ended up buying that day (purple capris, a striped shirt, bikini, and a grey skirt) was bargained down to 20,000 cedis (about $2) and that seemed to be the magic number for my cohorts as well.
Luckily Jane and I have mostly opposite tastes, so no fist fights broke out over a certain item we both wanted. This certainly isn’t the Gap or Old Navy: each thing is one-of-a-kind. No options in sizes or colors. What you see is what you get. Somehow, that makes it fairly easy shopping. That and the fact that the things are so cheap if it doesn’t work out, it’s not a big loss.
Who needs a mall when you’ve got Makola!?
The only thing missed was the A/C!
Makola Market has what you want, what you didn’t know you wanted, and plenty of stuff you definitely don’t want.
Fabric in a variety of colors, textures, cloth, patterns. Bought: army green material for twirly, full skirt (only later realizing I needed an extra ½ yard to make it flouncey like I wanted). Khaki for capris. Grey for pants if there’s enough material, a skirt if not. Some purple-blue patterned for a tank top. On another trip we had bought solid colored fabric that we thought would be good for light-weight tank tops, only to discover this time that they’re usually lining. Oh well, still think it’ll make a good shirt on its own…
Hair clips wanted: only Multi-colored Ugly found.
Shampoo: avocado scented Sunsilk or Dark & Lovely? No thanks.
Next we headed over to the Obruni Waywo area. Translation: dead white people’s clothing. Re-translation: second-hand clothes.
Along the way was a gauntlet. Men standing in a row with a few items to thrust out at you. Many, many arm-grabs. (Sorry, Charlie, but that will not get me to look at your wares!) I think Jane, Manon and I had similar natural reactions: a quick twist of the arm, perhaps a slight downwards push, to remove the offending hand. It’s not just foreigners that get the hands though; I was watching. But it was only we foreigners that got particularly bothered by the space-invasion. (Another annoyance, when shaking hands, the men always hold onto your hand for a painfully long time.)
The Obruni Waywo area was like Goodwill or Salvation army, only stalls upon stalls of clothing in narrow allies under a tent-like roof. Clothes were heaped upon the floor, but we focused on the few hanging up that could easily be seen. We were in search of the ever-elusive swimwear and managed to find it after at least 6 requests that resulted in 6 fingers pointing in different directions. On the way, there were a slew of tailors at their ancient machines, cages of chickens, a few goats and a man pounding fufu (using a big wooden pole to mash the cassava). The bathing suit selections were minimal, but I bought a striped string bikini (my 3-year old polka dot one has lost its shape). Normally, in the States, a bathing suit is the most difficult thing to shop for. It requires a trip to every possible store, trying all available styles on in front of the mirror and much rumination.
Not so here. You see it, you buy it, un-tried-on. Hesitate and it’s gone. You have to have a very keen eye and, like a raven, anything that glitters in the sunlight at a distance gets a second-look. “Free for looking, my friend” (oh wait, that expression is Egyptian). Everything I ended up buying that day (purple capris, a striped shirt, bikini, and a grey skirt) was bargained down to 20,000 cedis (about $2) and that seemed to be the magic number for my cohorts as well.
Luckily Jane and I have mostly opposite tastes, so no fist fights broke out over a certain item we both wanted. This certainly isn’t the Gap or Old Navy: each thing is one-of-a-kind. No options in sizes or colors. What you see is what you get. Somehow, that makes it fairly easy shopping. That and the fact that the things are so cheap if it doesn’t work out, it’s not a big loss.
Who needs a mall when you’ve got Makola!?
The only thing missed was the A/C!
posted by Jill at 2:04 PM
1 Comments:
Gross! You bought a swimsuit second-hand?!?!? Yucky!
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