Sunday, July 17, 2016

Today we went to Kejetia Market, the second largest open air market in Africa. It has more than 45,000 stores and you can find anything you can think of — and anything you wouldn’t think of. We had the choice of either staying with Leslie to look at fabrics, or going with Sonny to take a tour of a portion of the market. A very small group of us chose to go with Sonny, and this was by far the hardest part of my trip. We only walked around about 25% of the market, but the aisles were jam-packed with people and the lingering smell of fish was unlike anything I’ve smelled before. I met some very nice local women who were impressed with the small amount of Twi I could speak.

When we got to the meat market, I had the choice of staying behind, but of course my FOMO (fear of missing out) wouldn’t let me. We walked down a few steps to a basement that was almost completely pitch black. There was blood all over the floor and insects on the meat. At one point I didn’t think I was going to be able to make it, so I just put my head down until we reached the end. As soon as I saw the light at the end, I lifted my head to come face to face with a huge ram’s head, teeth intact and all.

We walked to a place where we could see the top of the whole market. All you could see were the tops of the tin roofs, and the tranquility from above differed drastically from the chaos that lie underneath. On our way back to meet the rest of the group, we ran into a group of Ghanaians blasting traditional music and dancing in the street. They pulled us in to dance, and within minutes we were surrounded by hundreds of people who were taking our pictures and yelling to get our attention. While I was at the market, I got slapped on the ass by a woman once, got two marriage proposals, and almost threw up more than three times. This experience had all my senses overworked and I left feeling a little queasy and dizzy. I was definitely ready for a shower and a nap.