November 16, 2011
Entry 6:
Market Day
13 July 2011
It’s Wednesday morning and the streets of Andranafansika (the nearby town) are alive with the hustle and bustle of the market! Men in tiny little run-down stands sell everything from knives and axe heads to car parts and radios. Piles of fruits, vegetables, shrimp and fish lie on tarps next to enormous bags of rice and beans. Women walk around wearing hand woven straw hats and tan mineral-based face masks while selling colorful lambas (light shawls) or various fried foods.
Little triangular eggroll-like sambos packed with meat or potatoes make delicious snacks, as do fried bread-covered bananas called mofo akondro (moo-foo a-coon-droo), whose freshness can be determined by the degree to which they burn your tongue. Homemade peanut brittles, meat brochettes, and steaming bowls of noodle soup are also available for purchase from smiling, friendly vendors who certainly began their walk to town well before dawn.
When all is said and done and our stomachs are full from the wide assortment of exotic foods, we’re amazed to find how completely bloated and blissful one can become on market day in Madagascar having spent only about 1,500 Ariary. In dollars? No more than seventy five cents.
