Girls like to go to the market. That is what Brendan told me,,,Yea right. I went shopping with him anyway to Merkato in Addis Ababa.
It is a large sprawling series of buildings that mainly would not get a compliance certificate in NZ, and attached are lots of lean-to stick structures and the plastic sheeting that protects your stock in this time of RAIN. We went after the rains on Saturday, so the streets were washed and not too smelly, but mud up to your ankles if you missed your footing. Some of the habitation behind the shop fronts were reminiscent of Dicken’s description of the slums of London, open drains used as sewers. Men peeing quite openly into these and waste from resturants, and semi-industrial processes heaped on the sides often being grazed on by fat tailed sheep, goats and donkeys (between loads).
The highlight was finding what I suspected all along…some African booty isn’t real. In many parts of Africa the women have bottoms we wouldn’t want to be seen wearing and the local men follow the largest with their lustful eyes. Our cultural obsession with boobs isn’t universal.
Anyway the highlight of the market was finding padded knickers. Maybe I’ll get some lustful glances now.
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