So the market - imagine you're in China town in New York, but take away the really tall buildings and fake designer bags. Replace the bags with a section to buy chicken in cages, and add the sounds of cocks crowing (do they crow? is that the word? howl?). Add a few random chickens hanging about. Take away all the Chinese vendors, but leave some of the random bright colorful plastic crappy made stuff. Pile that stuff up high, with seemingly no order. Add a whole bunch of Guineans. The men are selling appliances and couches and second hand bed spreads and all of the things that currently reside in my kitchen (plates, cups, glasses, a blender, a bucket, a basin and scrub board to wash my laundry, an oven that gives me small electrical shocks, etc.). The women squat around selling small bags of peanuts and rice and whatnot. Make some vendors impassive and non-responsive, and make the majority as eager as car salesmen, but then keep in mind that selling their wares is what really allows them to eat on a daily basis. There is no social security. There are no soup kitchens. There are no shelters. (More on beggars at the mosque later) In the food section, picture cut pieces of fruit and meat lying on tables or on cardboard on the dirty muddy ground. Now add a MILLION flies covering the open food (fruit is cut open to show quality). Now add more flies, because I know you are going to have a hard time fathoming the sheer fly density. In the meat section, the smell of rotting meat and fish is so strong it turns my pansy stomach. Argue for prices, but know that your lack of pigment is going to get you ripped off, because they know you have money. Even if you don't have a lot, you probably have more than them. So shut up and pay higher prices. The largest market is Medina, and the next largest is Niger. I got all of my household goods at Niger because there was a touch of ethic conflict in Medina the last few days. Just a tiny touch, nothing to worry about.
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