23rd August

I had a day off from teaching summer school today, and it’s the end of the 15 days of fasting, so this morning’s plan was to go to the market with Y and buy a chicken for the ‘dorro watt’ (chicken curry).

I actually really enjoy going food shopping in the UK. It may not be politically or ecologically correct to say it, but I like supermarkets, with their endless shelves of beautifully packaged foods. I would spend a while browsing the shelves, admiring the products and fantasizing that as soon as I got them home, they would transform me into an amazing cook who could throw beautiful ingredients into a pan, simmer for a while, and then produce a gourmet quality dinner. Needless to say, that never happened, but the fantasy was always satisfying.

Shopping in Lalibela is a whole different ballgame. My supermarket is an open dust bowl which, on a Saturday morning, fills with hundreds of people from the surrounding countryside who have come to sell their produce and buy supplies.

Things you can buy in Lalibela market include, in no particular order: sheep, chickens, spices, eggs, goats, donkeys, butter, onions, chillies, potatoes, wicker baskets, clothes, jewellery, honey, soap, coffee, coffee pots (called jabena), carrots, shoes and gabis (white cotton blankets). Women spread hessian sacks on the dusty earth and lay out the spices or vegetables they’re going to sell, while the men take the animals to a fenced off part, ready to haggle and sell for the best price.

It’s normally complete bedlam. Think Tesco’s on Christmas eve, but with less queuing. People come from miles around, babies snug on their backs, young boys carrying chickens by their scrawny legs, and girls inspecting the tomatoes to check the quality. When I come with Ab, I often end up clinging to the back of his tee-shirt in an attempt to stop myself being swept away in the crowd.

However, today was the first time I’d been to the market with Y. There are definitely differences between the way women food shop and the way men do it, be it in Sainsbury’s or at Lalibela market, and especially in a society where men don’t normally do the weekly shop. Ab comes along with me to help bridge the language and/or haggling barrier, so we stumble from one place to another, depending on the order of my shopping list. Y, however, goes every week to do her own shopping so, much like me in Tesco’s, has a plan and a route that she follows. Today, not used to having a farange to babysit, she shot off in the narrow pathways between the produce and I rushed after her, trying and failing not to slip on the mud or step on the women sitting by their vegetables.

The market is less overwhelming to me now than it was when I first went, partly because I now have a survival kit: 1) lots of change: it’s no good trying to pay for 6 birr’s worth of potatoes with a 50 birr note 2) a list of what I need, or else I could be there all day, just wandering around, distracted by by the colourful spices, beans and chillies and 3) a bag – no pre-packaged food at this market, and it just isn’t good when you have to stuff your eggs, potatoes and chickpeas into your pockets. You can buy plastic bags, but it’s a hassle and I learnt this fairly early on when I wanted to buy onions and ended up traipsing all over the market trying to buy a bag. Now I have a soft canvas bag which is my ‘market day’ bag. So much easier.

The last thing I need to have with me when I visit the market - an Ethiopian. Not because I’d get lost, or need help carrying my food back to the house, but simply to stop me getting ripped off. The local shops in Lalibela know me, know I’m living here and earning an Ethiopian salary, and therefore charge me a decent price. However, those at the market are usually from the countryside, and when they see white skin they immediately double, triple or quadruple the price. Not so much of a problem if it means paying 4 birr for onions instead of 2 birr, but when it came to buying the chicken, I was glad Y was there. Prices quoted to me ranged from 30 birr to 50 birr for a tiny chicken, while Y eventually bought a similar sized one for 16 birr – still a few birr more than she would have paid if I hadn’t been loitering beside her, but not an outright rip off.

In general, a farange at the market is a source of great interest and amusement to most people, whether they are buying or selling. Tourists do come to walk round the market and have a look at what’s going on (although not many when you consider the amount of tourists coming to Lalibela), but it’s not often that a farange is buying a chicken, or a kilo of onions. The women selling potatoes or tomatoes give an impressed smile when they see I know how to measure what I’m buying, filling the empty tin cans on their laps with the vegetables, and several boys today did double takes when they heard me speaking Amharic to Y. If I stop for more than two minutes, a small crowd gathers around me, mostly silent and just staring, while a few brave souls will venture a ‘hello’ in English and a quick ‘how are you?’.

Today Y needed to buy butter for her daughter to put on her hair (they use it to make their hair shiny and strong – sometimes the smell of butter from the girls in my classroom is overwhelming, although I’d rather that than the boys’ smelly feet!). One woman was sat on the floor to sell it, scooping the butter out of the pot with her fingers and measuring it using a small coffee cup, while a crowd of women squatted around her, all waiting patiently for their turn. I stood behind them all, watching the selling with interest (butter for my hair is not something I have ever had to buy before!) , before realising I’d collected quite a following.

A girl of around 16 or 17 stood beside me, a baby secured tightly on her back in a cloth sling. The baby peered at me with big brown eyes, completely bemused by this strange creature it saw and unsure how to react, while the girl giggled behind her hand and averted her eyes if I looked at her. A few other girls joined her, babies on their backs and with the same giggling shyness. A young boy came over to try and sell me biscuits, while a few older men leant on their shepherd crooks and stared thoughtfully at me. Only the toddler scrabbling around my feet seemed completely uninterested in me – he was more concerned about the boiled sweet he had spotted in the mud, and getting it in his mouth before his mother could stop him.

Eventually Y got the butter she needed and, our shopping completed, we started our long walk up the hill to my house. Our bags bulged with
onions, garlic, potatoes and carrots, while the chicken was slung over Y’s shoulder by it’s legs. In fact, it seemed resigned to its fate, with only the minimum of squawking and flapping of feathers.

Everywhere I looked I could see women heaving their weekly shop home, some balancing it on their heads, most carrying it in baskets by their sides. Children trotted after their mothers, while men steered their donkeys along the road, sacks of tef and wheat strapped on the animal’s back. People were dressed in their traditional white clothes, ready for the celebration of the end of fasting, and the smell of dorro watt and coffee drifted across the street. Definitely more fun than Sainsbury’s.