When the Spirit Moves, Buy Those Shoes

I think I mentioned I pretty much wore out the cute little ballerina skips I bought for this journey in Malawi. I was thinking I'd be in the city for the most part. And, for the most part, I was. But when I wasn't actually in the city, I was walking pretty dusty and rocky roads. The shoes were quite lovely and very thin soled. Alas. They looked quite stylish with my long cotton skirts.

Something told me, though, that those thin soles were not going to make it much further, so I went shoe hunting during my 5 hour layover in Johannesburg. I ended up with something not nearly as chic, but certainly a lot more serviceable. They ended up being Crocs! They look like suede Mary Janes. That strap across the instep was an excellent idea. Being Crocs, there was no way I would get a "perfect" fit, but they did the trick, except for those moments when my foot twisted out of them because they are just a tad large.

I still don't like looking at them.

The first day in Ghana we went to the market in Accra. It was a lot like the market in Lilongwe -- only a LOT bigger. Around the perimeter of the market the shops and pathways are a normal size, but as you get into the market, the pathways narrow and the shops get smaller and closer together. Emmanuel had some errands to run, so I got to see the market up close and personal.

Everywhere we went the folks were gracious and kind. A couple of times Emmanuel left me at a shop while he went in search of whatever it was he was in search of. The people went out of their way to make me feel comfortable. Akkwaba! means "welcome" in Twi. I was very much akkwaba everywhere I went.

At one point Emmanuel was purchasing women's underwear to bring to his girlfriend, Charlotte's, mother in Cape Coast. Charlotte's mom has a store and she would resell the merchandise. The underwear booth we went to wasn't much bigger than a postage stamp. We went behind the counter and I sat on the only chair while Emmanuel negotiated his transaction.

Clearly modern marketing concepts haven't escaped the folks in Accra. Although the shop sold both men's and women's undergarments, they "got it" that women do most of the buying. There I sat surrounded by shelves and shelves of underwear boxes sporting rows of six-pack-abs men modeling their product.

I got to see a lot of those shoes while I was waiting.

As we walked deeper into the market the pathways narrowed. I'd say they were no more than three feet wide with hordes of people going both ways. I'd often have to step into a shop as someone with a more-than-3 ft. wide bundle on their head passed me by. Negotiating market streets was a challenge, to say the least.

Emmanuel had quite a few things to purchase, and his bundles were getting to be burdensome. As we were leaving the market, he engaged the services of a porter -- a young woman with a very large pan on her head. We piled all the bundles into the pan and for, quite literally, the equivalent of a few cents, she followed us to the car, carrying the bundles. I can think of times when I would like to have such a service!

That being said, a lot of the porters are very young and look to me like they should have been in school. It is a very hard life -- all day long carrying other people's good for pennies.

I wish I had taken a picture.

(This last market picture comes from http://search.creativecommons.org/ Uploaded on August 28, 2007 by Sara&Joachim) I tried uploading it using the blogspot facility so proper attribution would be made, but it didn't work.)