Treichville Market

Treichville market is as I remembered it. There is a hive of activity on the ground floor of the building where anything and everything is sold. You can do grocery shopping (live snails and turkeys if you need them), pick-up household items such as pots and pans, or get your hair done.

Half the people are sleeping half the time, lounging about on floors or benches in the heat. Others are chatting, laughing, shopping, braiding a friend's hair... We bought some kola nuts at one stall and were offered some kaolin to try (beautiful pieces of chalk/clay with pink stripes running through them that you can see in the photo).

The first floor, where craft-work is sold (pagnes and masks mostly), is less intense as many of the stalls are empty. One guy was painting wooden figurines. He showed me a wooden couple he was working on as a wedding gift for an albino friend who was getting married (also in picture).

Finally, we bought a couple of pans from a small shop opposite the market run by a Lebanese couple (Lebanon away from Lebanon - I felt at home!) We were invited to some Turkish coffee and talked a bit about Lebanon and the Lebanese community in Cote d'Ivoire. I took a portrait of the Lebanese lady in front of her wares for posterity.