Market

 

Each day I arrive at school at 7:30 AM, sometimes sooner. My room is 204b which puts me on the second floor in the one of the older buildings with an outside walkway. I climb stairways leading up to my classroom door that faces out over that open-air walkway. The view is of an apartment across the street that gives no relent to the poverty glaring back. A blue corrugated roof stretches out from beneath a railing and doubles as a steel drum with a cacophonous rhythm when it rains. When I reach my classroom I catch a glimpse of a market just below in street. Just a fractional view but I can tell by those bustling about that there is more to be had around the corner. Some teachers frequent the market and return with fruit or vegetables but I have yet to explore its opportunity.

View from walkway outside of classroom

I went down to the market one day before before any class commenced and the street revealed extensible more. The Burmese were getting about with their day, selecting their wares to an occasional shunting of a train passing by on the circle line. The engineers always seem to wait until classes begin before they start blaring horns for notice. I draw much attention in the market because I am western and represent the private school next door, the class difference. My six-foot five inch frame Everest’s above them all adding to the attention I get.  But that is no matter.  I am always greeted here with smiles that are not what is called “pan-am” but instead a genuine, ear-to-ear eye-wrinkling smile that just cannot be counterfeited.

Identifying much of what is sold at the market is easy, especially the flip flops and articles of clothing. But some foodstuffs unique to Southeast Asia escape labeling and work the imagination to wonder and categorize. Often we eat without a clue as to what spice or ingredient garnishes. Fish and meat are elementary.

 

 

By the early afternoon the market disappears like it was never there.  All the venders pack away everything into spaces just inside the buildings behind their station. Spaces where they live. Adding to this are all fresh vegetables, fruit, poultry, etc., that is fresh. It all has to be either delivered or picked up by locals early each morning long before the day brightens. Early when many would consider woken a type of assault. I think they do this nearly every day. The river is nearby.

There is a new  spot I notice just outside my blue roof. It is a pile of clothing put out in a spot on the street and it comes and goes with a different cadence. It is a heap of garments that extends for about meters and has neighborhood shoppers pawing through for anything useful. They hold up articles to check size and seem to mull over color schemes. It is like a Good Will store and I wonder if that is where the people from the shanty get some of the clothing. And where does it come from?

Shanty near school