Market Afternoon

After Lusiti, I rushed over to Rubaga hill to meet again with George Mugera. This time, he shared the stories telling the origin of the heart (mutima) and sheep (ndiga) clans. Like the ngeye story, they wove together characters, places, names and the envionment - though for these two - as you can already tell - they didn't have as powerful a connection with the conservation piece. 

Anyhow, after we finished, I said that I wanted to go to the market and get some chicken. But not just any old chicken - we're talking so fresh it's still clucking chicken. So, here, for your enjoyment are some pictures of a typical urban African market in 2008.... ah... if only there was smell-o-vision,  you could better appreciate the full sensory experience. 

So, first, are pictures of our lucky chicken before and after (yes, this is the same chicken folks) - and the fee for dispatching and cleaning this fair bird was a mere 35¢! 

 

A fish monger is captured, whisk in motion to keep those flies on their toes, and, for a snack, just ask the nice lady to break off a few pieces of this lovely dried fish-mobile. To help with the smell, the lady at the bottom can sell you some garlic, onions and ginger.

Oh... and the last picture - Easter eggs. Now I realize I actually am completely insane. I had seen food color in one of the markets, and had to buy it. I mixed it with some white vinegar and boiling water and - voila! - Easter egg dyes. It didn't stop me that the only thing available was brown eggs. I used candle wax to do resist printing on egg number one and just dipped egg number two.

To add to the sillyness of this exercise, I did it by the dim candlelight of a blackout. As part of a 'load sharing' program, the electricity periodically gets cut off around Kampala. That sounds sensible (kind of) - but somehow I have a hard time believing there's any planning involved when power just goes in and out for a couple of hours at a time, even 

seemingly critical places like the airport. Anyhow, here's evidence of my egg-straoridinary evening!