|
|
North America South America Caribbean Europe Asia Africa Australia Antarctica Itineraries East Timor Journal Entries |
September, 2003 - Komoro Market, Dili, Timor Leste
Traveling along Komoro Road, a main road connecting Dili town to its airport, one comes across a clearing to the north of the road. If here, you leave the well-traveled pavement, its mikrolets branded with words like "Romantis", "Doping" and "Fuckdog", its deafening motorbikes, honking taxis and pristine white UN vans, trucks and pickups, you enter a dusty, dry circus of selling, bartering, waiting and living.
Walking toward the market proper, you pass a field of what seem like 'also-ran' vendors (the late arrivals? the ones who can't afford covered stall?). You dodge the handful of invasive-seeming cars pushing through the crowds. You smile at the calls of "Hello Meester!", "You want a feesh, Missus?" and "Melay! How ah you?", all the while trying to acknowledge each person in turn. The frenzy of people around you tote chickens alive by the feet or chickens dead, shrink wrapped and frozen, black poly-bags of fruits or handfuls of mustard greens in bunches. Young boys push wooden pushcarts holding shiny metal pots of ice-cream-like treats, or they pedal a larger cycle-cart carrying an array of drinks, snacks and cigarettes. Rows of women sit by the roadside half-heartedly attempting to sell assorted piles of white garlic cloves, purple shallots, bok choys and dry, stringy carrots, or perhaps neatly arranged pyramids of tangerines or tomatoes; two stacked upon a triangle of three. Grandfatherly men sit beside young boys diligently sorting piles of tobacco and shaking strips of betel nuts. Wandering vendors carry balances of greens or shimmering silver fish attached to each end of a sturdy wooden pole held solidly over their shoulders. Flip-flop laden teenage boys appear unemployed, sitting lazily and spitting massive wads of hork at the dust by their feet while their female counterparts, young and sometimes plump, ferry produce between piles spread neatly on sarongs on the ground. In the market proper, the cement floor is sporadically interrupted by drainage channels and miscellaneous unexplained pits. Walkways are somewhat covered by stringy, torn tarps fastened with ropes and propped up by makeshift wooden poles, the size of which make it necessary for many (a Westerner, anyway) to walk semi-crouched. Aisles of tall tables with more produce on top lie east-to-west, each made into an exclamation point by stalls at each end selling fine-ground coffee from buckets, neat squares of tofu soaking in water filled tubs, low bamboo tables covered in even neater packages of still-warm, fermenting soy bean tempeh wrapped precisely in banana leaves and securely closed with a toothpick like shard of bamboo. Fresh ginger and tamarind, piles of avocados in fours, fingers of fresh turmeric, papayas, breadfruit, jackfruit, potatoes, onions, miniature garlic bulbs on long stalks tied up in bundles. Heads of lettuce tied together in threes by long tough sinewy grasses hang precariously beside sturdy, healthy looking bunches of small bananas, yellow, purple and green. Soursop, coconuts, durian, pineapples and other mysterious forms of nature's feast sit awaiting bargainless purchase. Interspersed are better established 'shops' with consumer goods - kitchenware, polybags containing various unnamed powders and glass bottles containing mysterious liquids, plastic packages of detergents, knives, packaged pairs of rubber sandals, dishes, pots, pans, cutting boards, tools, knick-knacks, razors, VCDs, DVDs and CDs, shoes, second hand clothes for people of all sizes. All goods are tended to by diligent youth or wizened women fast asleep napping, pregnant mothers with teeth stained red by betel nut, sarongs wrapping their big bellies, flip-flops under their leathery feet. Older men, perhaps middle-aged, operate coconut grinders and sewing machines, hack meat into quarters amongst pools of sickly looking blood, wave feathered wands apathetically over neatly lined up fish, whole, head or tails. Almost everything seems to cost one dollar. Or fifty cents or a quarter. A constant murmur of deals, attempted or done, of radio music crackling with static, the drone of passing motorcycle or truck ambling along the potted thoroughfares. The smells and feelings that make your skin crawl with excitement. You are watching and being watched, and your senses are overwhelmed. This is Komoro Market, Dili, Timor Leste. > See photos from East Timor. > See photos from Bali. > See other East Timor journal entries. Back to top |
|
| advice site / links / last updated / contact / home | ||