The market at Dio

I have dubbed the market at Dio the most obnoxious place on earth. If I can avoid it, I do. Which is never. Every Saturday morning, I seem to find myself making the 7k trip to stock up on peanut butter, eggs, and whatever fruits are in season. Besides, since everybody in a radius of about 10 miles goes to Dio for market and Saturday, if I didn’t go, what the heck else would I do? Every woman magnetically flocks to Dio, walking miles and miles in lines like ducklings, with their babies sagging on their backs and large baskets of god-knows what on their heads. I always felt especially bad for the milk sellers. A whole utility bucket of milk is pretty hard to carry on your head. And if it falls- unlike other goods- its done. I was once on a soutraum- the brushie Malian form of transportation, with a milk seller. As always, people were crammed on top of each other. An unfortunate milk seller saw the fruit of her lengthy labor spill all over the vehicle’s floor, and the rest of us enjoyed a nice ride with curdling, un-pastersized, whole milk sloshing around the hot tin below our feet.

Anyway, the Dio market was obnoxious at first, when I was new to the area, and no one knew me. Everyone wanted to know who I was, where I came from, and most importantly, what I wanted to buy. All the yells of the kids, “Tubabu! Tubabu!” were easily ignored as well as the calls of the sellers, “Come here white woman! You buy this! You buy that!” Now, not only do they call to me, but I know about half of the people personally and to ignore them would be a put down.
“Aminata!”
Oh hi! How’s the market going?
“Don’t you want to buy some [insert good]”
Sorry, not buying it today.
[At this point, the conversation most always moves into joking cousin. If the person’s last name is amenable with mine, I am her sister, so why do I not buy? If it is a feuding last name, I am worthless because I eat beans. I have written before how useful bean jokes and joking cousins are to integrating into Malian culture. The joke that hasn’t gotten old in centuries- it still cracks people up every time. But really, to us Americans, it DOES get old after a while. To go from point A to point B in the market involves stopping to great EVERYONE, and appeasing them with the appropriate bean joke after a series of lengthy greetings- well, it gets exhausting.]
Strolling from bean joke to bean joke can be quite exhausting… I just want my freakin peanut butter!
In Dio, half of the people think that I am the Dio volunteer, Caroline, or Masaba. So I must answer to multiple names, and be especially on my toes when they call me the right name- this is a hint that I should know the person. So I almost always pretend I do, though getting people’s names right is still a chore.
If I do make it to the peanut butter, I find 5 women sitting under a hanger, side by side, all selling peanut butter- separately. It’s like the 4 gas stations on each corner of the intersection- but same price, quantity, and quality. If I buy from one, the others wonder why I didn’t buy from them. I should really try to keep track. “Are you going to make peanut butter sauce?” they ask- (The idea of a white girl cooking is apparently very funny).
“No,” another one will say, “These white girls- they put peanut butter on bread!”
And that just kills them up. Meanwhile, I’m standing there, watching sun go down, as I’m trying to decide if I can get everything I need and get back to Dombila.
I then go get my eggs from the butiki- this little arab boy works there who has a big crush on me, and always asks if I want the really big bag of powdered milk. Nice kid but very slow at math. Afterwords, I go get my fish from my fish man. He’s this old gruffy looking man who comes from the North region by the Niger river. The fish one can buy at a Malian market are blackened, dried, and curled up. Yup, hard and crispy as can be. And no, I don’t cook with these- I give them to my homolouge and my host family. But when I’m served one, steamed over a plate of rice- I think happy thoughts about Omega-3s and protein, close my eyes, shove it in my mouth and spit out the bones. The head is another story. So I greet my old smiley, squinty man, who gives me some of his fish and tells me how the roads were for his trip in the morning. I’d like to hang out and chill with him for a while, but unfortunately his stand is in the danger zone- the goat-meat guy’s zone.
It is at this point, after buying my fish, that without fail I will be grabbed by the goat meat guy. There are a couple of these guys that hang out, steaming a whole goat and selling little pieces of meat. This one’s a big, sweaty, boisterous fool with a little sly moustache. “My wife has come!-[that would be me]- Surely you buy meat today.” He takes my arm and leads me over to look at the beauty that is the bloody ribs of a newly slaughtered goat. Irresistible. Ever since I once bought a few pieces of meat to bring back to my family- he thinks I’m gonna buy him out every time.
Then it’s looking for bananas. For some reason, the banana sellers just can’t sit still. They don’t hang out on a little stand like the rest of people. They wander around (“yala-yala”) with the banana’s on their head- and there’s only a couple of them. So when you spot them it’s like Where’s Waldo- but they disappear into the crowd just as fast as you spot them. So I find myself pushing through the people on the road following the floating yellow head on the other side of the crowd.
Only to be bothered by the bus drivers.
On the road there are cars with stacks and stacks of goods on the top and van (soutrums) and their drivers bouncing around bugging people (especially me)- “Where are you going? Bamako! Kati! Bamako!” Well obviously, you must be going somewhere, you have a backpack on.
“Here. I’m staying here.”
No, you don’t understand white girl- where are you going? What car do you want to get on?
I don’t want to get in your junky car! I just want to find the banana lady!

And if I make it through all of this- I hit the road to Caroline’s house, greeting every single person with lengthy Bambara salutations on the way. Whether she’s there or not, I sit for a few minutes, catch my breath, and put my eggs in my bra (I figured out this is the only way they won’t break on my return bumpy bike ride.) I miss Wegmans.