The Stock Marketers

Following a heavy thunderstorm last night (this the start of the rainy season), I was compelled at 6:00 AM to walk back to the farmers market area, as previously I only skirted the edges, viewed from the distance.  In so doing, I noted that it really stretches for several blocks in multiple directions.  I had been told that a new market is being constructed somewhere, that the old one was torn down, and so the vendors have permission to use the street.  And use it they do!

A striking composition

It is a swarm, a flowing human torrent where standing still amid the swirl begs problems.  I observed several types of marketers here - those selling from the top of a burlap bag to ordinary folks, and then those that sell wholesale to "runners" who carry large crates or sacks balanced on their heads and feed the local food establishments.  These runners are amazing, with huge crates of tomatoes (or other produce) balanced atop a doughnut shaped cushion on their heads, or overstuffed sacks slung crosswise behind their shoulders, they literally run, quite gracefully with little side to side motion to restock their customers.  In some cases, the customer is a cab, and these sacks get tossed atop the roof and hauled to another location.  Or, the "runner" heads to their spot on the street elsewhere in the neighborhood to hawk their vegetables (usually only one type).  The older runners use what appears to be a handcrafted two wheeled cart made of eucalyptus branches, whose wheels cannot be larger than about 5" in diameter.

Market Madness

But the frenzy of activity, the sheer energy of this place, is amazing.  I stood aside, next to a parked truck and merely observed, without a doubt the only tall white buoy in this sea, but largely ignored, invisible really.  I track through the mud, which was the only thing that slowed these runners, or perhaps the minor impediment of a vehicle crawling through this sea of people.  (There are many old VW Beetles here).

Leaf lettuce bale

Seeing the bags of vegetables, and the carefully stacked lettuce - not heads, but leaves of lettuce nested in a circle, forming a cylindrical bale over 4' high, where the customer merely selects the number of leaves desired from the top - got me to thinking about the cost of produce.  I did not buy, but as this is a highly productive agricultural area, the cost of produce is likely quite low.  Consider my bananas.

I purchased a bunch of bananas - really good, sweet bananas - from a retail street seller, for about $0.24 a bunch (1 kilo) the other day, desperate for fruit.  So the runner gets his share, the seller his, and the wholeseller gets the rest.  We are not talking a lot of money here, but it is likely all relative.  So consider these other costs I have experienced:

Large bowl of breakfast oatmeal $1.90, with tea: $0.66

Followed by a chocolate croissant: $0.85  (a morsel of sophistication!)

Washed with a bottle of water, 1.2 liters: $0.81

A shoeshine on my way to work: $0.14 (am I exploiting here?)

My total dinner bill, rice and vegetables, soup, fruit ($2.57) and a decent Ethiopian amber beer ($0.97)

shoeshine

All women vegetable sellers

 My room, a more deluxe, larger space with a door 4" shorter than I am tall: $13.34 per night of fitful sleep, and includes distant music until 2AM, pleasant morning birdsong, and mercifully, a hot shower.

The Baro Pension Courtyard

Now I understand partly why another guest here, a ex-pat retiree from Holland who adopted an Ethiopian name of Ruta and colorfully embroidered black clothes, spends six months here, and has for the past 23 years, returning home only to bring money back.  The other reason can only be the energy derived of this sea of people at the farmers market at daybreak..