\u00a0\u00a0 Eric is so much more than a taxi driver, he is our\u00a0procurement\u00a0adviser, cultural consultant and friend. The idea of diving into twenty-five acres of shopping craziness without Eric is unthinkable. With ten thousand vendors, Kejetia market is the largest single market in Western Africa.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n THOUSANDS OF SHOPPERS<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n It’s hard to say how many people were at the market on this day but our sense of it was that it made Woodstock look tame. Yes, all those colorful little dots are people.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n ON THE FRINGES<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n There is more room to move about on the fringes of the market but it is still thick with vendors and shoppers selling everything you can imagine.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n DIVING INTO THE TRENCHES<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Eric lead the way with the confidence we would have lacked on our own. There were moments when we were afraid of losing each other, especially if one of us stopped to buy something. The feeling was akin to being swept along on a river of people.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n OUR QUEST<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n On this day Lauren was seeking fabric and beads so these are the two main areas we targeted for our shopping expedition. In the Kente cloth section, people sit and sew the strips of woven cloth into one big piece. The lady on the left is rolling up a finished piece of Kente Cloth. And yes, there were plenty of beads for us to choose from. We purchased three pieces of fabric and a dozen or so bracelets. And two deep fried donut balls. : )<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n HANNAH<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Hannah helped us pick out three pieces of fabric and we took the opportunity to speak with her about the recent fire. She said it cost a lot of vendors their inventory and that people leave their fires going and forget to put them out. After we left her stall with a fine piece of adinkra cloth and some orange patterned batiked cotton, I was more aware of the many fires burning within the market. We plan on coming back to the market and spending some time in the clothing district to give our wardrobes a bit of African appeal.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n NO IDEA<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Much of what we saw for sale was mystifying. The buckets of white goo we assumed was lard and the bags on the right, spices. The tip off was the packages of salt which we recognized because we buy salt in packages like this for our kitchen.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n PALM NUTS<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n We don’t know what to do with the red palm nuts we saw and didn’t know what the green things were.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n FISH AND FLOUR<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n We could have spent a week here snapping photos of all the activity and people’s faces while resting and \/or bargaining for a good price.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n TOMATOES, ONIONS AND POTATOES<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n The way we go through produce it is tempting to pick it up in bulk. Bob bought avocados because they are getting harder to find now that avocado season is nearly over. However no need to go downtown and haul back bags of onions and potatoes because the little vendors in our neighborhood do the hauling for us. We like the\u00a0convenience\u00a0<\/span><\/span>of buying a pound or two at a time and they benefit by making a small profit.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH ERIC<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n When Tamara came to visit, she was hoping to find some local color and make some purchases so we asked Eric to take us to the market. And because nothing is impossible with Eric, we were able to find a\u00a0mortar\u00a0and pestle,\u00a0Shea\u00a0butter, kontomirie leaves and cola nuts. The yellow words on the back of the taxi Eric is following in this picture say “For nothing is impossible with God – Luke 1:37” Which is appropriate. Naturally, Eric took us up the steps past the tailors towards the wash closet for an over view of the massive market.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n JOINING THE FRAY<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Tamara was ready for adventure and dove in fearlessly as we followed Eric through the narrow streets in search of local color.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n SHOPPING CAN BE ITS OWN REWARD<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Especially when you find what you want as in this fantastic low tech food processor purchased for 3 cedis or $1.50 U.S!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n ____________________________________________________________<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n ____________________________________________________________<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" <\/p>\n Diving into Kejetia Market, a shopping phenomenon referred to locally as the Central Market on August 4, 2012 <\/p>\n <\/p>\n LOST WITHOUT ERIC<\/p>\n \n Eric is so much more than a taxi driver, he is our procurement adviser, cultural consultant and friend. The idea of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1077,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sub-story","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1070"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1206,"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1070\/revisions\/1206"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/20120804CookieEricMarket.jpg\" "\\"20120804CookieEricMarket\\"")
<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0![\"\"](\"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/20120804CentralMarketRooftops.jpg\" "\\"20120804CentralMarketRooftops\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n[Latest]<\/a>\u00a0* [Troutsfarm]<\/a>\u00a0* [FS2BD Project Progress]<\/a> * [Central Market]<\/a> * [Local Color]<\/a> * [Fun with Tamara]<\/a> * [Around the House]<\/a> * [Bosumtwi Revisited]<\/a><\/h4>\n