Setting up Shop

Ansley had a brilliant idea a little while back. She thought it would be fun to gather a bunch of random stuff, take it to the market, and sell it all for practically nothing. It would be a true African experience, setting up shop like the African women do.

Today was the day. We all put on our African dresses and filled grass baskets and a market bag with our goodies. Things ranged from little toys for kids to toothbrushes and clothes.

We began our walk to the market with Jolie, Emily's African mother. I'm sure it was a sight: three white girls in African dresses with bags and baskets on their heads. Yes, we carried our things to sell on our heads, and did a surprisingly good job of it too. We met so many people on the way asking us in Nangjere where we were going and what we were going to do. Laughter erupted from all present, including the Nassara, when we would tell them back in Nangjere, "We're going to the market. We're going to sell things."

It was such a fun trip to the market, and we took some good pictures. Jolie just laughed and laughed at us as we were going along, trying desperately to balance the bags and baskets on our heads. Once we got to the market, we set the things down next door to Jolie's little fabric shop. By this time, we had drawn quite a crowd, and I'm not sure how it happened, but as soon as Ansley sat down on the ground with her basket of things, the crowd engulfed her as people started grabbing things out of the basket to look at and ask how much it cost. I'm serious, Ansley practically disappeared in the swarm of people. It didn't take long for us to realize that maybe setting up shop was not such a good idea.

We were losing track of who had grabbed what, and the people were just smothering us. So we decided to pack up. We tried talking to them and asking them to back away and come one at a time, but it just wasn't working. We took our stuff and left, rather disappointed that we wouldn't be able to really get the full African experience of selling at the market. But once we got back to the hospital we just set up all of our things on our back porch and sold to a few of the hospital employees and people who live nearby. It was still kind of fun, still very African-- "bargaining" prices and people asking for a gift after they had bought something (that's customary; if you buy from someone, you ask them for a "cadeaux" or gift because you've just done good business with them, and usually they'll throw in something small). All in all, it was a success, but I still wish that we could have done it at the market.