Market Day!

A few weeks ago I was in a little bit of a slump, so in attempt to unslump myself I took the day off and had a proper market day! A market day was just what I needed to boost my spirits. In case you have never been to a market in Uganda I try my best to give you an accurate picture of what a day of retail therapy looks like for me.

Well my day started off pretty well because I woke up in my newly cleaned room. My room had seriously gotten out of control, this probably won’t come as a surprise to most of you, but I’m kind of messy. But on day my room was in a downward spiral of disgusting. However, after finding ants in my bed, I had had enough! I spent all morning cleaning, and now my room is sparkle clean, and will (hopefully) remain clean. So when I woke up to a clean room, it just started my day off right.

The market, my friends and I had decided to go to was outside of Fort Portal so that meant we had to get a taxi to take us the 40 km into Fort Portal. Usually taxis are crowded and hot and slow, but miracle of miracles we were able to hail down a private car (with leather seats!) and rode peacefully, and speedily into Fort Portal. I really cannot emphasize how awesome this ride in was, often when I get in someone’s car for a ride there then ensues some serious creeping, persistent (unwanted) flirting, and even a marriage proposal, which are made even more awkward because you are usually stuck alone in a car with this person for 45 min to an hour. The guy that gave us a ride in yesterday, is apparently one of the few not creepy Ugandan guys, and did not bother us at all!

Okay, back to the market. We went to a market that is a little further away from our normal market, and it was well worth the extra travel time.

This market was huge and a decent amount cheaper than our normal market. Maybe I should back up and describe the markets here: a giant conglomeration of stalls and tarps with piles of things on them, selling clothes, shoes, veggies, cookware, bags, fruits, etc. Usually filled with hundreds of people buying and selling things, and always trying to rip white people off.

Even though everyone will try to charge you a ridiculous amount of money for what they are selling, just because you’re white, I still usually come away with some pretty good deals, like yesterday I bought a dress that was originally from H&M for $1.20! Although I bought a couple of new clothing items yesterday, what I was really happy about was all of the fruits and veggies. I never really realized how lucky I was in America to have access to basically any fruit or vegetable I could ever want. In Uganda, that is not the case. In Kaihura your options are tomatoes, onions, sometimes carrots, sometimes, potatoes, sometimes, eggplant, sometimes avocado, sometimes peppers, and on the rare occasion cauliflower. Fruits are usually just pick from someone tree and given to you. Of late the veggie selection in Kaihura has been dismal, like only onions and tomatoes. While I love both of these foods, there is only so much you can cook with just the two of them. Yesterday at the market though we were able to buy carrots, peas, garlic, avocado, mangos, and passion fruit (there were also a ton of other produce options, but those were the ones we needed).

Basically yesterday was just a great break from everyday life, I got out of my slump, we made samosas for dinner last night with some of our veggies, and I've got a new dress. An all around win!