Today was our first real trip to the marketplace near our house, down just off the banks of Lake Victoria. On the real roads, there is a bustle of little shops clustered around, but as Ggaba Road goes the last few hundred yards down a slope out to the lake, it becomes a real little marketplace, with people gathered around surrounded by hills of produce or mounds of pineapples or tables of fish or bags of beans and grains. Or giant cages of chickens, which was Emerson's favorite, although he was a little incredulous about their intended use.
All the rows and rows of vegetable stalls look just like many markets I've been to in Asia or Latin America, but the way to buy produce is a little different than what I've encountered before. They don't seem to want to bargain, and when I asked our new friend, a Kenyan woman living in our apartment building, she says they might bargain a little sometimes, but they don't want to bargain with me (or us? I don't think she speaks Luganda either) because they don't know enough words. She said they will just offer the right price "and if you try to bargain, they will just be quiet and not talk with you any more." Some items have price tags on them, and I saw Ugandans just switching money and product with no conversation, so it doesn't seem that bargaining is a big part of the transaction for anyone.
Instead, everything is arranged in these precise little mounds. When we go to buy potatoes, the stall has dozens of small buckets of potatoes, each carefully piled so three potatoes make a spire on the very top. There are the very small buckets of potatoes for 3,000 shillings, the medium buckets for 5,000 shillings, and the big buckets for 7,000, and when you pick your bucket they empty it into a bag for you. (The smallest bucket was probably about 7 pounds or so, for just over $1. 2,000 shillings of sweet potatoes half-filled my cloth grocery bag!) The pineapples and watermelons were sorted into different sizes, for 1, 2, and 3 thousand shilling fruit. At several stands, when I asked how much something cost, they asked how much I wanted. If I say 1,000, they give me that much of the item - I got more ginger than I had imagined I would! The 2,000 shilling bunch of bananas was huge, so I asked for 500, and the man went around to find a knife and cut a small bunch in half for me. (He looked kind of grumpy about it, but how many bananas can one small boy and I eat before they go bad?)
Since this market is right on the lake, needless to say there is a bustling fish market. First we walked through the whole market, and then we came back to buy things. I had spied a large white fish, which the seller was chopping into fillets as people ordered, and I thought it looked good so I returned to that stand. He was apparently just putting his fish away, but when I appeared interested he said "you want snapper? stay there, I go get for you. Sit here." "Here" was a plastic lawn chair, which Emerson was already in, but unfortunately to stand on to try and see the pool game behind the fish stalls, which was pretty precarious. So while we stood around, the fisherman in the stand next door (each "stand" being really literally a stand, just a shelf and chopping block, large enough for the man to stand in front of) tried to convince us to buy HIS fish instead. The longer we waited there, the more effort he made, but first of all he said it was cod and I liked the look of the white fish better, and second of all the other guy had gone off to get his fish and I thought it would be rude to not be there. There was a bleeding chunk of fish hanging out on the lower shelf waiting to be chopped, but the man wanted to convince us that his fish was VERY fresh, so he grabbed a tail and made another huge fish flop around convulsively on the shelf. He apparently thought this was a convincing demonstration and did it a couple of times, by which point Emerson was fascinated and wanted him to keep doing it more, and at some point he leaned too much in his lawn chair and practically fell onto the butcher block and right into the flopping cod, but the fisherman grabbed him in time and told him to sit down properly in the chair. (Okay, maybe those were my words, but the fisherman did catch him and give him a little scolding, which I find kind of amusing, because another American mother at a mutual playdate or Tiny Tots would not usually dare to be as proactive!)
Luckily the first fisherman came back before Emerson could climb into the shelf to shake the cod himself. He showed me his nice great big fish flank (luckily already cut into, so not flopping) and asked how many kilos I wanted. I usually buy a pound of fish for 3 or 4 people, and I wasn't sure how much I would need for dinner, so I said 1/4 kilo. He made like he couldn't understand me, although I think he got it the first time, he just didn't approve of bringing a large fish over for a rich American to buy 1/4 kilo. The chopping block was on the front part of the stand and there was a big scale with weights on the back. He very slowly and disapprovingly took off the bigger weights and took a tiny little one and put it on, and carefully sliced a thin sliver of fish. Well, the soft edge he sliced; then he chopped -- and I mean chopped! Tiny bits of fish were flying off and spattering Emerson and me. He put the fish on the scale; I guess he was right; it was not very big! It overbalanced the weight a little bit, so he asked, dryly, if I wanted him to cut it. I said it was fine, and asked how much. He said 3,500 (at least I think that's what he said), and all I had was a 10,000 so I gave him that. He slowly reached into his pocket and slowly produced change: 3,500. I confirmed the price again and I think I heard the same thing, but he didn't offer to fix the amount of change. At times I do hear incorrectly or not understand the way something is done, so I couldn't think at the moment what I could say to a grumpy man with a machete, who was anyways already chopping some fish for the next person. I just decided we didn't need any more fish from that stand, which is too bad for him, because next time I will get more than 1/4 kilo anyways!
I have been wondering what people here use as their spices and seasonings, as the marketplaces don't have much. My first shopping day, the marketplace guy helpfully suggested that I get "flavors" and showed me: mushroom soup powder, tomato paste, chili sauce, and ketchup. (He insisted that I at least get the ketchup, which seems consistent with the meals I've seen!) After a few dreary or salty meals, I was determined to see what I could find at the marketplace. (They also don't seem to have butter or cheese, which helps to liven up plenty of meals in my opinion!) I found parsley (or cilantro, I didn't manage to actually buy any of it yet), tiny dried mushrooms which must be very good because they were 5,000 for a small bag, packets of what I am told is curry powder (the packets look just like yeast packets at home!), ginger, shallots and garlic, and little bags of tiny dried fish, which I also didn't get because I don't know how to use properly.
So when we got home, I managed to make the first truly delicious meal we've had since we've been in Uganda! What a nice reward!
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