Plunging in

Remember yesterday I was impressed by how many foreigners there were around here? How the food was served in holes-in-the-wall? I was cured of this today - today some impressions of what one might call "the real Africa".

I went to the Makola Market today. I'll admit, it was not quite was I expected. I'd been to markets before, in India and the Middle East. If I might say so, this one put them to shame. First of all, it's far larger than any Indian market I've been to or any souk I've wandered in the Arab world. I took a taxi there and he took me to the edge of the market, then asked where I was going. "No idea," I shrugged. I paid my fare and got out. I saw a sign that said "Makola Mall". In I plunged. Finally, the crowds I expected. The exoticism I imagined. Strange and unexpected things around every corner. To be clear, a "mall" it was not. Instead, there was aisle after aisle of stalls, at first selling the junk you find in many developing-world markets. Cheap dishes, cloth, pots, beaten-up electronics.

Eventually I reached the food section, which seemed even bigger. Happily the ground was mostly dry; I can't imagine what it would have smelled like had there been pools of stagnant water. There were plenty of fish, but not a shaving of ice. The crabs came in several varieties, and were still alive, climbing on top of each other as they tried to escape their prisons inside plastic tubs. Piles of pink pigs' feet and more stacks of an unidentified red meat. I slowed down to take a closer look at those; I stopped when I got to the snails. They were also still alive, crawling around on top of other snails' fist-size shells. No, I'm not exaggerating, and no, I've never seen anything like it. "Do you eat them?" I asked. "Yes, want to buy some?" the hawker replied. "No, thanks, but can I take a picture?" She wanted money from me. I took no pictures. Still, the snails were probably only the second most shocking things in the market.

I only saw it once, but I couldn't keep walking when I saw the pale brown rodent the size of a small cat (for the Indian readers, it was about the size of an Indian bandicoot, complete with the giant front teeth). The creatures were dead, to be sure - hacked in half by one clean cut from what must have been a rather large machete. Seeing my stare, the vendor asked if I wanted to buy any. "What is it?" I asked. "Bush meat: grasscutter." I kept staring. The vendor's friend laughed at her and said, "You asked him if he wanted to buy any, now he's going to stare for a while longer." I've eaten bush meat before - nice big animals like kudu, ostrich, wildebeest. I shan't be sampling the grasscutter any time soon.

Sadly, I didn't get any pictures, even though I had my camera in my pocket. I had read and heard several warnings about how Ghanaians don't like to be photographed. I had also been warned that the police will come quickly if they see someone photographing a government building, and of course I had no idea which were government buildings. Most significantly, I was alone in the middle of a big crowded city. On one hand, the crowd made me feel safer - no dark lonely alleys here. On the other hand, crowds in poor countries like this can become mobs quickly. I had no desire to be at the center of one of those, so I kept as low a profile as my white skin would allow. Luckily, I'm not the first one to visit the place, and there are plenty of pictures online. Oh, and foreigners? None. It was about as much Africa as I could take for one morning, and after about an hour of wandering, I found a cab and returned to the relative comfort and familiarity of the posh side of town.