Into Africa

November 15: Going to Market

Ifolo [the 16-year-old daughter of Signe’s second cousin, who lives in Nigeria] and I went to the huge market Dantokpa, known throughout West Africa. Come with me now: I’ll try to describe it for you.

Dantokpa is an eight-square block labyrinth of wooden booths and makeshift stands with straw or tin roofs starting at a main road and winding all the way down to the lagoon, with a three-story building in the center. It is a true cacophony, a melange of languages and ethnicities and products from everywhere. It is also a haven for pick-pockets, so be careful with your bags and wallets.

The central building houses more shoes than you have seen in your entire life. They are thrown together in piles on the counter, hanging on walls in plastic pockets, stacked upon boxes. Lots of women’s shoes – high heels, prom shoes, wedding pumps, gold sandals, open-toed, close-toed, plastic, canvas, fake leather, man-made in China, Taiwan, Korea, Italy. Children’s sandals and men’s oxfords occupy a few stands. And the prices aren’t bad.

To get to the shoes, you have to enter any of three open doorways in the front, then squeeze and weave and "excusez-moi" and "pardon" your way through rows and rows of glittering gold-plated necklaces, ruby rings, bronze bracelets, and silver sets of matching pendants and earrings.... There is some good quality gold from Ghana, Italy, South Africa, and Saudi Arabia (they say it’s from Mecca), you just have to find it amongst the stuff that turns your skin green in a couple of weeks.

Follow me up one of four flights of cement steps to the second and third floors for fabrics. Everyone knows that Africans dress colorfully.... Almost no article of clothing is a solid color, but rather prints and dyes are the norm.... Indian shawls, oriental satins, embroidered wedding fabric, rich velvets, sheer veils – you can find luxury from any country. It is a feast for the eyes. Being the daughter of a seamstress and having grown up in Jo-Ann Fabrics, I feel at home walking through aisles of colored fabrics....

In the outdoor section of Dantokpa, you can find anything you want and a million things you don’t want, not to mention a thousand things that you have no idea what they are. You are constantly bombarded by wheelbarrows and carts loaded with products trying to maneouver where you were going to walk... If you should have the misfortune of glancing behind you, you’ll walk right into a display of brooms or a pot of brown beans or a bamboo cage of live chickens. The music of the market is a mix of modern and traditional clamor: bargaining and bell-ringing and baa-ing, shouting and shepherding and shooing.

A few notes on bargaining, which is what you have to do to buy anything. You’ve got to know what you want, but look like there’s no way in the world you would want such a horrible thing. You nonchalantly ask the price as you pass by, nearly onto the next stand. When she says the price – the market vendors are almost always women – you put on your biggest, most exaggerated frown and cut the price at least in half, depending on the item and its real price, which you should know.... The vendor will frown back at you and knit her eyebrows and explain to you that this season, avocados are very expensive and she had to go far to get them. She lowers the price a hundred CFA. You say that you know the real price and...she tells you to add a little more.... You refuse and glance at the stand down the street that sells avocados. "Edabo (goodbye)," you say and walk away. Now the most crucial moment. You strain your ears to hear the vendor’s voice in the hustle and bustle around you. You are waiting for one simple word. If you miss it, you will have to start the whole process over again at another vendor. You walk a few steps, then you hear it, faintly: "Viens (come)," she says.

You look back and she repeats, "Viens." You walk back, get your bill out, pick three avocados that are ripe and not bruised.... You won. The self-satisfaction of getting my price and not getting ripped off despite my skin color is one of my favorite feelings here.