Today is Market (Marché) day. Every four days, vendors from all over the Atacora region (Northwest Benin) descend upon the quiet and quaint Toucountouna to sell their products. Today I rushed to the market because I heard that bananas had arrived (a nice treat) and I had to “get it while it’s hot,” or they would all be taken. On market day, I’m lucky to be accompanied by one of the Ali boys, usually Yannik. Without their help it would be quite an amusing folly to navigate through the maze of local languages. Yes, I know a little Wama, but hello, goodbye, and my name is, can only get you so far. There are about 50 local languages spoken in Benin of which five are the most frequently used. On market day there are 6 local languages spoken: Wama, Peul, Ditamari, Natarri, Yomm, and Fon.
Sure, I can speak French, but local language seems to be preferred in marché territory. As I’ve learned in life, there is nothing that a genuine smile and a kind-hearted “ thank you” can’t get you, like an extra head of lettuce for example. J The staples here are tomatoes, onions, yams, corn, and oranges. All the produce is grouped in little pyramids for purchase. A pyramid of tomatoes can sometimes easily be found for 50 cfa. 500cfa roughly equals one dollar. So 50 cfa… pretty cheap. You can easily live off of two dollars a day here. I do go a little crazy, however, just living on yams and tomatoes. When I go town, I can go to the ‘yovo’ store. A ‘yovo’ store stocks Western/foreign food. I can’t get everything you’d expect in a western supermarket, but at least it’s something. I can sometimes find apples and grapes but as most things are in the yovo store, it’s very expensive.
At the marché, all of the vendors are 99.5% women. Whenever it comes to selling food or produce, the seller will almost always be a woman. Come to think of it, it’s the women who also do the purchasing at the marché as well. There are men walking around, but I suppose they come mostly to sample the tchouk, an alcohol from a fermented calabash squash that tastes like a bitter cider. They scoop it out from the giant squash with a little bowl and serve it. Whether it’s to drink tchouk or sodabe (essentially moonshine) or buy a basket of tomatoes, the marché is the social gathering place of the week. I see all my students, all my friends in village, and many colorful characters.
Every time I do my food shopping, I attempt to buy wagasi. Wagasi is a hearty cheese that you fry. Wagasi has been one of my main sources of protein. My other sources are 10 eggs a week and chicken once a week at a restaurant in the nearby town, Natitingou. Safely prepared cut meat is difficult to find in village, but of course live goat and chicken are plentiful. I had my chance to kill a chicken during Peace Corps training in Porto Novo but I just couldn’t do it. I thought about it and immediately thought differently.
To kill a chicken, you dig a little hole in the dirt for the blood drippings. Then you stand over the chicken with one foot on the wings and one foot on the legs. With the neck tightly in hand, you then slit the throat and hold it over the hole until it bleeds out. You have to be careful to not let go of the chicken until the bleeding stops completely, or else it might try to get up and run away with a slit throat and its head a little cocked to the side. This happened to one volunteer. She thought it was dead, let the wings and legs loose from her weight and it went jumping about spraying blood everywhere. If I was looking in at the situation, it must have been quite hilarious to watch these foreigners trying to kill a chicken and getting all worked up about it. There were quite a few on-lookers since we did this on the side dirt road. Many were laughing as if it was the funniest thing they’d seen all day. This will be one hypocrisy in my life that I’m perfectly content to live with… I will eat meat, but there is no way in hell I will kill it myself. Well c’est la vie, I guess I can’t be well integrated on every front.
Anyway, I digress. Wagasi. A hearty cheese. Hearty enough to boil or sit in a pan for a low simmer for 20 minutes , which is a must considering the possible bacteria present. It has an acquired taste. You get use to it. And after a while you crave it. Especially with tomato peanut sauce, yum. The people who sell the cheese are the Fulani/Pole people.
The Fulani are nomadic people that have tribes or clans in many African countries. They roam the country with their cows and go where the green grasses go. Most of the Fulani I’ve encountered only speak local language. Its quite difficult to communicate with them because even the non-nomadic Beninese do not know their language very well if at all. The Beninese are usually familiar with a few local languages since the country is so small and the languages so numerous. But Fulani is not usually in their repertoire. So again a smile and a nod is my only way of communicating. Also, as I’ve heard some Fulani are a little scared of white people because they don’t see us often and we are then different and intimidating. Despite their elusiveness, the Fulani women are absolutely beautiful. They are truly what you would see on the glossy pages of national geographic. Women dressed in simple but elegant embroidered cloths with many beaded necklaces as wide and sturdy as a tire draped around their neck. They may also wear beaded bracelets, rings and headpieces. They sometimes paint their face… a vertical strip of rouge down the center of their lip or white geometric shapes on their face. They have intentional scars on their faces called scarification, which I believe is unique to Benin. Fulani and other Beninese clans have different identifying scars. I will get into scarification on another blog.
Honestly, ever picture from every angle of these women would be perfect. There is such a grace about them. Unfortunately, taking pictures is a little difficult. People either want money for the photo, or people think you’re just taking pictures to make money off of them. So if you want to see the beautiful Fulani women on market day… come visit me! J
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