Shopping at the Zogona Market

On Saturday, Kathy decided to do some shopping at the Zogona Market. There are lots of outdoor markets all over the city of Ouagadougou, including several in our own neighbourhood, but they don’t have the selection of fruits and vegetables we’d like, and often not the quality either. However, the main drawing card of the Zogona Market is the fact that it has a meat market, a fact clearly publicized for all the world to see by the circling vultures overhead

We pulled up to the meat market, a long brick building housing a dozen or more vendors. The air was filled with the sound of machetes hewing large chunks of animal carcasses into more manageable portions, knives being sharpened to reduce those portions into more useable forms, and people yelling questions, comments, and orders to each other. Off in one corner the meat grinder was busily turning out ground beef. Flies buzzed everywhere.

We headed straight for our vendor, Moustapha, and ordered several pieces of meat and a couple of kilos of ground beef. While he worked on getting that ready, we could go and do the rest of our shopping, picking up the meat on our way back.

Actually, Kathy went and did the rest of the shopping. I don’t particularly enjoy just following her around from one vegetable stall to another, stooped over virtually double so as not to bang my head on nearly every rafter of the wood and straw hangars that provide shade for both vendors and customers (Kathy does not have this problem). Instead, I headed for a nearby maquis, a place with tables and chairs that serves cold drinks to people wanting to cool down, take a break, or visit with friends. Ordering a Coke, I nursed it along, listening to the loud music they had playing, and watching the world go by until Kathy came to tell me she was done.

Whew! After such an exhausting morning, I was more than ready to go home and put my feet up for a while!