Today is market day. People come in to Djenné from miles around with goods to sell. In the huge market square in front of the mosque, they set up little lean-to's made of wood and thatch with their goods on display such as different fruits, plastic containers, calabash ladles, clothes, meat, and pots. Huge trucks bring produce from towns to the south where there is more rain, so more vegetables can be grown than is possible here. They unload huge bags of oranges and potatoes, rip them open, and they're in business. Everybody goes to market day to buy things not normally available locally, and to socialize. With everybody talking and greeting each other and haggling over prices, the market is incredibly noisy. Dusty too, since it takes place on open ground and everyone's feet kick up dust, not to mention the donkeycarts by the dozens that come into town. What my sister Annick and I disliked terribly about the market is the fact that the beggars can get really annoying. One beggar in a very torn and very ripped green t-shirt followed us all the way through the market. They are very persistent. These beggars are talibés, or Koranic students who have to get their food for a year by begging. This way they learn first hand the virtues of charity and giving alms. Alms-giving is one of the "seven pillars of Islam," or the seven things that all devout Muslims try to do. The market is a bustling place. Things are always happening. It's crowded, people are cooking, carts are moving through the crowds, people are yelling etc.

A little boy came up in the market with a wooden box full of little toys that he had made by cutting apart big aluminum cans that held tomato paste. These are a distinctive red and gold and made very colorful toys. He seemed to have made three varieties maybe four. He made a plane and three types of cars including a jeep and a truck. The planes looked like Cessnas. We were going to buy a plane but he was asking a lot of money (500 francs, about $1.00), based on the very low price of most things here. So we walked along and came upon another boy who sold us a truck for half that, 250 francs (about 50 cents). That's why every sale requires bargaining about the price. You can save a lot of money! After that we tried to find the other boy to say "well, you should sell us your toy for 250 francs because the competition is selling his for 250 francs." To no avail, we were not able to locate him, even when we went searching again. At the Campement, a sort of hotel (small mud hut accomodations) with a bar, there was a small set up on a table of these toys, but more ornate than the ones I had previously seen, mopeds, trucks, jeeps, buses, VW beetles and a whole lot more. It's fascinating to see what people do here with imagination, hard work, and recycled cans! That's another thing I really notice here - people throw away very few things. In the market there are stalls that sell used bottles and cans, which take on a new life as containers for kerosene and water and lots of other things. The one thing they do throw away, because they cost nothing, are plastic shopping bags, just like the ones we get at the supermarkets. These litter the streets and the river bank, making an awful mess!