Every Saturday is market day in Farendé. I wake up late (around 8am if I can stay in bed that long) then eat some Quaker Oats with powdered milk, a little sugar, and hot water. After breakfast, I hike into town for a pre-marché meeting with Rui, Alex, and Jesper to discuss any cultural questions we might have (eg: sorcery, funerals, ceremonies). After, we head to the market. The market is incredibly lively and has many differnet sections and vendors - grain, pagnes, an infinite array of flip flops and Obama paraphenalia, bread, fruit, locust bean stuff for sauces (smells like dog poop), and fufu. Set back from this main area is the dog meat stand, which only men are allowed to eat, and the twenty or so beer ("sulum") stations.
Kabyé beer is not like the beer in the States - I would hesitate to even say it is beer... It is made from sorghum and tastes like slightly carbonated apple juice when it hasnt been fermented. Wehn fermented, it is less red, less sweet, and more alcoholic depending on how many times it has been filtered. The sulum is made by the Kabyé women, and each woman`s beer has its own style and taste. Market days (for men and Americans) are spent hopping from sulum hut to sulum hut socializing and drinking 50CFA (aournd 10 cents) calabashes of beer. Two drinks later, I am exhausted - I hike back up the mountain, take a bucket shower, and nap. I probably go to bed around 930pm - with no electricity and limited battery power, there is not much to do after sunset.
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