More on Market Day

(Guest scribe Kathy on Market day experience) We were going to take the truck to town, but a tractor got stuck on the bridge so the truck couldn't get through and we needed to walk. It was ok. We walked fairly slow and drank a lot on our way. The market was fun...mostly stuff that we wouldn't want, but I saw some cool stuff too. We saw Ethiopian coffee pots (kind of a clay ball with a spout that they put grass of some sort to filter the coffee when then pour it into cups). The other day when we had tea and coffee at a little village, one of the ladies roasted beans over fire, then ground them and made coffee over charcoal in this same kind of pot. She first made tea for us, which is kind of like chai tea, and both drinks have lots of sugar. Today we visited a moslem friend of Bethany's who has a little coffee and tea shop in town. She and Bethany are very fond of one another, and Bethany's baby Joshua loves this woman. Joshua let me hold him too while we were having tea. Bethany and I had tea, and Val and Hanna had coffee. The coffee is hot, sweet, spicy and strong. And both are served in juice glasses, which are really hot to touch. However that's nothing compared to the women picking up hot charcoal from the fire. Victoria, who is married to one of the teachers here, said you can't be a real African woman if you can't pick up hot charcoal from the fire. And I thought I had abestos hands. We tried to pay for the coffee and tea, but she said we were guests today, but we could pay next week. We bought greens, mangos and oranges. We ate mangos at lunch and they were delicious. We also bought beads that we're going to take to some local women so that they can make us necklaces or bracelets. And I bought a red arabic dress that loose and hopefully cool. We walked back at the end of the market tour, as the truck was still stuck at the bridge. Malesh!