A New Kind of Thrift Store

Butcher poses for the camera.

Awaiting the car with our spoils.

Picking up eggs on our way home.  

The chicken farm is just around the corner.

We have to wash our vegetables with bleach water, 

then rinse and dry them to avoid getting sick.

This is the clothes washing machine in our kitchen.

On Saturday we experienced Madina Market.  Our friend Vanessa, who is a Ghanian and works in the school office, took us along on her weekly shopping trip.  Tonya, also a new teacher, came with us.  

We parked and began perusing the shops along the street in search of the things on our long list.  Brand-name, knock-off, new, and used appliances lined the shelves and Vanessa showed us how to bargain.  I thought the wide street was Madina, but soon we slipped between two buildings and into a huge, open-air market packed with people.  

We pushed along, shoulder-to-shoulder.  Almost anything we need is for sale there.  We purchased trash cans, a broom, an iron, a pot and pan, knives, mugs, matches, a wrist watch, kitchen sponges and rags...all before we got to the food.  There were also mountains of used clothes and shoes.  Goodwill has nothing on Madina.  In the food area we could buy spices, pineapple, lettuce, carrots, tomatoes, sugar, flour, live crabs and giant slugs (crawling out of their buckets), and salted pig’s feet (yummy!).  We didn’t buy the latter items this time.

Vanessa even showed us the butcher’s shop, which was a tall building in the middle of the market.  I couldn’t resist becoming the tourist and pulling out a camera in there because there were animal carcasses everywhere and men chopping them up with machetes.  To my horror, however, as soon as the flash went off, the butchers started shouting at me all at once.  I was about to turn and run in fear until I realized that they all wanted their picture taken and they began posing with cheesy grins.  

Walking through the market are teenagers with giant metal bowls on their heads.  It is customary to have one of them carry your items on his or her head for a tip at the end of the shopping trip.  The girl who helped us must have had forty pounds in her bowl!  

Everywhere we go, including Madina, we try to use our small but growing Twi vocabulary.  Even just saying “Meda ase” (thank-you) results in big smiles from the before serious vendors, and children usually laugh out loud as if we have told a joke.  Vanessa said that many foreigners don’t even attempt Twi because everyone speaks English, so it makes an impression when we try.  And a little bit of gratitude goes a long way in any culture.