Owino Market
I went to Owino Market yesterday with Jenny. Amazing place. Reminiscent of
the open air markets in Taiwan, but much less smelly. There are stalls on
all sides, winding dirt and puddle strewn alley ways in places crowded with
people. Piles of cloths laid out on mats, yards of tapestry fabric, row
upon row of shoes - men's dress shoes by the hundreds and women's sandals,
all second hand - they can do wonderful clean up jobs on shoes here. There
is a tailor's corner where a lady altered a dress for me in all of three
minutes. Their are piles of pots and crockery, mixed in with the food
sellers where you can find pounds of peanuts and mounded piles of flour,
rice, and tubs of curry powder. Some food was still good, some rotting.
There are baskets of tomatoes, passion fruit, pineapples, mangoes,
watermelon, bananas and green oranges and tangerines. They are not unripe,
they are just green here along with the lemons. I managed to confuse a
tangerine with a lime the other day and had to juice a it for the guacamole
instead of the lime I wanted. People are every where, ready to bargain. I
had a great time, though I wished I could have wandered, sparing more time
to look around. But if you stop to look, people descend. The women aren't
too difficult to ward off. They are friendly but leave you alone if you say
you are just looking. But if the young men are the bold type they will
begin to talk with you, attempt to profess that they are in love, try to
take your hand, at least try to elicit where you are from, and they might
even try to bargain for a marriage. Its the strangest thing and sometimes I
wonder what they would do if someone actually took them up on it. Not all
men are this way, I have met several friends of Jenny's who seem quite nice
and were very polite, they were church friends and university students. But
some of the ones in the market just make me want to laugh. One asked Jenny
if I was her sister and when he received an affirmative reply he told her he
would marry me and he professed for me how much I would like the
arrangement. :) I really think he was joking for we both laughed at him
and he laughed too. Jenny informed him that I was engaged and he asked if
it was to a Mizungu like me. Then he told her that really I would prefer a
black man. Again we both laughed at him and walked away. What strange
conversation. I can't imagine a stranger anywhere else attempting such
lines. Marriage discussions are just like a big joke around here.