au marche

The visit au marche today left me with kind of my first taste of culture shock since I’ve been here, and by that I mean I can still smell the foul stench of dried fish heads on my skin and on all of the food I’ve eaten  since the encounter.  Right now all I can really think about are those nasty ass fish that smelled worse than anything my nose has ever come across – this is not an exaggeration. It was so pungent and distinct… you take literally one wrong step in the market and BOOM the fish stench is allllll up in yo grill.  I’d rather stare at an infinite number of slaughtered zebu faces than have to stand in the presence of those fish again. 

With that said, the trip today was super super interesting and for the most part we all had a lot of fun.  Let me paint the picture here…. Today is the day of the week that this particular rural community hosts an open air market.  Vendors sell everything from raw zebu (omby) meat to dead (and live) chickens and ducks (much to the chagrin of my dear friend maddie!!!), tv antennas, car bumpers (sometimes with license plates attached), eminem tshirts, this mysterious delicacy called kobaha (?!? Aka the malagasy version of pb&j that resembles raw tuna wrapped in banana leaves – no joke, I asked the man if it was fish and even motioned with my hands like a fish), dried fruits, bananas, fresh coconut (personal fave) peppers, candy, etc etc… the market was very crowded with both vendors and consumers, so I found myself repeating under my breath “aza fady, aza fady” (which can be translated to “pardon”) because there was no way around bumping into people every couple of steps .  In Malagasy culture, it is generally practiced that when passing by a person who is sitting, on dit toujours “aza fady” to show respect. 

To say that we – aka white people, aka “vazaha” [foreigner] – stood out is an incredible understatement.   In fact, I’m pretty sure I made a child cry today … it’s like alien status over here.  The poor kid had never seen anything like me before in his life!  It is culturally acceptable and also rather common to stare here – so a walk down any street in Madagascar is a bizarre experience as a foreigner (and I’ve only been here a week!!) because everyone just kind of stops what they’re doing and gives you a long, blank stare.  I’ve learned that people will either be totally confused, amused, or scared to see a white girl walking around… this is not to say that there aren’t any other vazaha in Madagascar – just that it is not so common… to the point where one is inclined to yell “VAZAHA!!!” if another foreigner has been spotted.