Tara Clark Photography

So I lost connection all day & finally getting a window to cut & paste what I wrote earlier. I also thought I may be able to post pictures but not possible.
Sitting here in the training hall after lunch. Hot as usual, looking
forward to an evening cold shower. Decided to go back to the market
this morning and explore further. Always a bombardment of visual
stimuli there. Now when I walk I see at least one person who I have
met before which is nice. Abdalah was near the mkt this morning, I
met him the other day when I sat on the rocks near the market. I
talked w/ him briefly before moving on. Some of the market
highlights: thin, muscular men, sweating bullets as they unloaded
huge sacks of ?? into a storage area. They were thrilled to get their
picture taken. Then I found the fish section. Larger pieces were
dried in thinner long pieces and then kind of braided into bigger
clumps. Then there were little smoked fish and a few larger ones. Of
course, none of it looked at all appetizing! Then I passed the
vegetable section which consist of cabbage, tomatoes, okra, red onions
& random greens, next came the grain & bean area. Then fried ball
like donuts, some sort of condensed mixture the old men selling it
said it was tobacco?? To me it looked like a greener mixture of dung,
mud & straw...would love to know what it was made of. There were
women selling flour that was swarming w/ bees. I asked if the bees
stung and they all infatically nodded yes, but none of them acted
alarmed at all as they worked right in the middle of it or the little
kids just off to the side. I got close and didn't get stung. I guess
the bees are too focused on the flour to think about stinging a
person?? Continuing on I came to bags of what looked like white chalk
chunks but it was dried potatoes that would later be ground into
flour. In the same area were fresh potatoes. Finally I came to the
shoes, clothes & other accessories area. It was time to turn back
around and retrace my steps. Close to the buzzing bees Abdalah found
me and pointed to the right so I followed. It hadn't dawned on me
that I hadn't seen the meat area but it quickly became apparent that
there was a whole other row. You can see every part from the mouth to
the hooves, insides & out, on the tables. There were about 15 buthery
stalls.
Abdalah continued to give me Arabic lessons as we walked. When we
returned to the rock sitting spot I was quickly surrounded by curious
onlookers (all men) who were very enthusiastic to help me w/ my Arabic
so I pulled out my notebook and filled a page w/ translations. My
horrible pronunciations brought immediate laughs so I would keep
trying until I got a collective ahhhh or nod.
Abdalah walked w/ me back to just across from our compound and was
telling me he wanted to buy me a drink (all this in Arabic and
gestures). I kindly said no thank you but he insisted, that it was
his brother's shop just across from where we stay. So I accepted and
he was disappointed that I wanted water instead of a Coke. So he got
me two. Being bought a drink instead of being asked to pay for
someone's drink was such a nice change! (I had pulled out my pictures
of the boys and a family picture during the language tutoring so all
are clear that I have a husband and kids at home). It was just a nice
gesture!!