Tamale central market

I followed Joy through the covered marketplace. I doubted if many foreigners ever entered this place. Stalls were lined up row upon row around narrow cement lanes with slight indents in the middle. I assumed these to be intended for funneling liquid out into the gutters but they instead became pooled with mud, excrement and rubbish. Joy deftly stepped around the puddles and garbage on the ground, I tried to follow in her footsteps but nearly fell into a boiling pot of soup. “That would be a great start to the trip” I chided myself, imagining the gossip; “the foreigner scalds herself not ten feet into the market on her first day in the city”. I stepped more carefully, allowing Joy to move farther ahead as I tried to navigate the bustling traffic of women with plates on their heads, babies crawling in the muck on the ground and men carrying loads of goods through the alleys. I turned a corner sharply and my knee collided with the bloated belly of a brown goat, who gave me an annoyed look and stepped a bit to the side, reaching down for a piece of plastic. I had a moment of panic because Joy was nowhere in site, it suddenly struck me how out of place and lost I would be without this new acquaintance to guide me. I gazed around at the sprawl, trying to smile despite my confusion, aware that many eyes were trained on me, looking up and down my plain dress and light skin. Joy waved to me from a hair shop and I relaxed, walking gingerly over to her. She was scanning a wall covered in hair extensions and weaves, apparently all 100% human hair according to the packages, and discarded one when she noticed the red and gold streaks running through it. She pulled another out of the package, long wavy black hair and felt the texture, deciding which would be the best look for her as a bridesmaid in a few days. As she searched, I looked over to a clearing in the marketplace. I winced as a toddler lifted his shirt and revealed the distended stomach of kwashiorkor, protein malnutrition. I wanted to give him my granola bar, loaded with peanut butter, but could not imagine any possible way of presenting it without greatly offending everyone around. He giggled and ran over to an adorable plump baby sitting on the ground, fascinated by a plastic wrapper which she continuously picked up and dropped. A man rubbed his feet and spat on the ground nearby, looking at me with an exhausted and perplexed expression. On the other side I saw a young woman, probably about my age, dressed in a gorgeous deep purple dress which had patterns in teal sprayed across it. She bounced her baby on her waist and returned my smile. Joy emerged from the shop and lead me to another stall, lit by a blacklight, its violet hue illuminating the lingerie and nightgowns covering the walls. I shook hands with the woman working there and was invited to sit down on the single plastic chair in the space. Joy unabashedly pointed out which bras she liked and the woman handed them to her. Joy commented that her breasts were tiny so she wanted a push up bra for the wedding. I realized that in this culture, mine were also exceptionally small, although I had never lamented about their size before. I wondered what women here thought about people getting breast implants. Joy asked me to clip a few bras on over her shirt as she tried them on. She called out in greeting and a man came to the store front to say hello. I marveled that she did not feel embarassed sitting there with a bra around her T-shirt, and wondered if it was flirtatious or just meaningless. I had read that in Ghana breasts are not nearly as sexualized as in the west. Here one of the most sensual parts of the body is the area below the belly button until the waist. I noticed while watching Ghanian music videos that the women often wore high cut but cropped T-shirts and low cut jeans, emphasizing that area. Joy selected a few items and we headed over to the vegetable sellers. They were located in a more open area of the market, each woman in front of a table filled with either crinkly red tomatoes which reminded me of tiny pumpkins in the fall, huge green and brown avocados which I only recognized because I had seen one cut the week before, purple onions, pinched red and green peppers, okra, melons, coconuts, pineapples, mangos and other edible items I could not identify. The air was filled with the animated sounds of laughing women, the nasal “Henhhh” of agreement, the elongated “Naaah” of “I’m fine” and many choruses of “hello, good afternoon” directed at me. As Joy paused to greet one of the many people she knew, a woman in the shop nodded at me as she ate her wachi with her hands and said “you are invited, sister”. This invitation is customary and in some ways a formality, but I had heard it given infallibly by friends and strangers each time I was around someone eating, even if they already knew I could not eat the food because it was meat or street food.