It's the Marche Fer (Iron Market) a huge historic market and architectural landmark in lower Port au Prince. Built in 1891, it's been restored twice most recently January 2011 with $12 million from Digicel. It IS as beautiful as it looks on the picture.
I saw many regular market things there but also turtles (swimming in a eastern) Haitian grown cinnamon, and play pots which is what I went to the market to get for Gabriela's play kitchen which so far is a clean and flat place to play in the yard : )
On the way home we went lower down to buy some bicycles for the kids (mine and the friends who come over). Niko and I have been scoping out bikes for two weeks mostly in the large supermarkets. Basic bike with training wheels for just over $100. I can walk to one supermarket but instead I took a Moto almost to the port of Port au Prince to choose from the lovely display of bicycles that I'm convinced are stolen from Miami and loaded on to boats headed here. When i asked the sellers if they think they are stolen they showed no offense but merely started asking each other if they thought the bikes are stolen. While they did that, I tried to assess the environmental impact of buying a potentially stolen bike on the street vs buying a new one in a fancy store. I'm not convinced I'm making the best environmental choice here however I do LOVE buying from regular folks. And today my higher need and desire was to seek security. When we got to the Iron Market, my Mototaxi driver said. Don't get off here which I was already feeling. For me, it seems there are two ways to find security here 1. Be black 2. Get to know people and places across all social classes although the economic poorer ones are most likely to rescue you when you need it as they seem to have more time for that sort of thing. Despite being told not to get off the Moto, I felt at least emotionally safer at the Marche Fer than when I used to have meetings with the mayor or when I shop at the big stores. I asked Maxo, my mototaxi driver if he would come into the market with me and he did!
Luckily the bicycle sellers saved me from overthinking everything by offering me free marejuana, which is the word these sellers used to describe the skill and art of tying things up or onto something, in this case, the bikes onto the back of Maxo's moto. This made me laugh for a hour because hanging with these sellers for while I honestly just think they are into marejuana and not it's smokable cousin. Besides anyone would be hopeless at marejuana if they were good at marijuana. Even I know that.
Niko was thrilled with the Radioflyer tricycle that I came home with. His new mantra is: "me mototaxi driver" a welcome change from "play hockey Haiti!!!! Mama?!!!"
Sent from my iPhone
1 comment:
This was a great, funny read. Thanks for the post!
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