MARKET DAY

Every Monday it is my responsibility to cook the midday meal. This requires a trip to the market (usually with Aphia my cooking partner from Vanuatu) to pick up needed supplies such as tomatoes, lemons (the size of gold balls and not distinguished from limes), cucumbers (round and the size of cantaloupe), bananas, peanut butter paste (choice of brown or white), and perhaps a can of corn or peas.
This is not a tourist market. Abéché is not a tourist city. This is a practical, local, daily market. Most locals do not have refrigeration. We only have hydro in the city a few evenings in the week and anyone who needs regular hydro uses a generator. At the Center we use solar power for our hydro. So this market is a place for locals to shop daily for what they need. No nick-knacks or expensive baubles just the staples of life.

The market looks like a squatters village made up of many shelters of a roof woven from corn or millet stems held up by tree branches. This works well in the dry season when there is no rain. I can`t imagine market day in the rainy season with all the mud and these non-rainproof shelters. The government is in the process of building a brand new large market area made of cement buildings. It is nearly completed.

All you need can be found in the market or in the stores surrounding the market. From the staples like corn or millet flour to specialty items like spiced fried grasshoppers (crunchy and very spicy, the hardest part of eating them is the big bulging eyes looking at you and the thought of eating a grasshopper, I prefer popcorn). From goat or camel meat to live or dead chickens. From cucumbers to apples and carrots and mangoes. Dried and "fresh" fish and other assorted creatures.

Assorted flours and beans

Fried spicy grasshoppers

Fresh meat

Surrounding the market are various kinds of shops and craftsmen. From motorcycle repair shops to leather shops. From carpets to soap to canned goods. From pots and pans to tinkers. From dress makers to tailors to laundrymen. Along the way there are roving shoe/sandal repairmen, sellers of cigarets, plastic bags, trinkets and many other items.

Leather shop

Typical shop for canned goods and other items

Soap, chairs, carpets, cushions

Abéché has no malls but is serviced by many individual shops. There is no spirit of competition but each customer finds his/her preferred shop and uses it on a regular basis. I found the standard of honesty and friendliness. Often more product is added to the purchase in good faith of future purchases.

These watermelon sellers have claimed the corner of our street as their shop

A seller can set up shop most anywhere along the street. Many items are sold from tables set up on a street corner or along the road. A small stand of edible goods or drinks, or hand made items, or baked goods. Everyone works to earn their daily bread and so life goes on in Abéché and in Chad.

Going to the market in Canada is most often a weekly trip to pick up some fresh produce or flowers from the local farmers but in Chad is it regular daily life. Going to market means a leisurely walk with friends, meeting other friends along the way, greeting shopkeepers and security guards, encountering the smells and garbage, and the people we are here to serve. It means making new friendships. I love walking to the market with Aphia and Katharina. God has given them special favor with the people along the street to the market. There is a love there, a respect, as they greet each other and chat together. When I go down this street alone the shop keepers ask me "where is Katharina today, how is Aphia"? Going to market has led to giving out literature and visits to the Center to deepen relationships. I cannot imagine Jesus doing ministry in today's Canada but can imagine him going to the market with his disciples and relating to those he met along the way. Perhaps what we need in our modern world is more of a market day mentality of relating to one another and less of our present shopping mall consumer crazed mentality. Perhaps our advanced society is not so advanced after all!