Haitian Shopping

The formal economic sector in Haiti is virtually non-existent. The only stores I have seen are in the bourgeoisie neighborhood (known as Pettionvile) in Port au Prince. These were mostly clothing boutiques that sold French haute couture, some coffee shops, and internet cafes. There are also small “mini-marts” in the lobby of the Total gas stations. The economy consists of market women, or ti machen. Food, clothes, drinks, soap, shoes, toothpaste, and small household items are sold by the side of the road by these women. Occasionally men will sell items too, or walk around selling mini packets of potable water or fried snacks. The same items are available at nearly every market stand, and the brands are all the same too. It is repetitive and odd compared to the number of choices we have in the States, but the simplicity is actually relaxing. You don’t have to agonize over what one out of 20 different types of toothpaste to buy, you just buy Aim and that’s the end of the story.
The hard thing to get used to is the lack of food choices, and how the food is kept before it is sold. There is no electricity, so raw chicken and fish are not refrigerated. Consequently they lay out in the sun or if you’re lucky under an umbrella before they are sold. They aren’t covered either, so flies and debris get all over them. All rice comes in 15 or 20 pound bags marked with the American flag and are piled up on street corners before they are sold. I feel bad for the people who buy the bags on the bottom on the pile because the streets may be wet or covered in wet trash that will seep into the bag. At the visitor center, we raise and kill our own chickens so at least the need for refrigeration is somewhat skipped over, but the rice and beans are laid on the ground to dry before being prepared (God made dirt, and dirt don’t hurt is my new motto).
I had my first Haitian shopping experience on Saturday at the market in Ton Gato (literally translated into Tomb Cake). This market comes every Wednesday and Saturday to this area, which is about a 45 hike from the visitor center. I learned how to negotiate prices by saying Kombyen pou ca? Ca trowp! Kombyen pou blan, no? (How much is that? So expensive! It’s the white person price, right?) After managing to not get completely ripped off, I purchased a yellow plastic bowl and a pineapple, papaya, and apricot (not really an apricot, I don’t actually know what it is) to put in the bowl. I also bought a New York baseball cap. I then proceeded to carry the items in the bowl on top of my head as the Haitian women do, but I sucked. I’m looking forward to Wednesday, so I can have another shopping trip.