More awesome weekend pictures and Mercato market

I just wanted to share a few more pictures from the March 14-17 weekend and a few pictures of my time at the Mercato market last Saturday (April 6).

Let's start with the awesome weekend:

I promised you an embarrassing picture of me after we got rained on hiking in Entoto. Natasha's on the left and Scott's on the right. That's what an $0.80 poncho from Walmart looks like (in case you were curious). The Ethiopians all find it hysterical, which is fair. Turns out to be highly effective though. Given I had the backpack with everyone's electronics in it, I had to be the one to wear it. I offered it to Natasha and Scott, but they seemed happy to avoid the derision that comes with it.

More pictures from the Entoto hike.

Here's the whole gang at Jolly. From left to right, Nadia, Scott, me, Natasha, and Amandla.

Natasha and Amandla at Jolly.

Mercato is a very interesting place. It looks like an open air market that ran out of room and expanded into the surrounding buildings. According to Wikipedia, covers several square miles and employs approximately 13,000 people in ~7,100 business entities. Each shop is more like a little kiosk that locks up, so it also has a weird feeling of an indoor/outdoor market held in a bunch of storage units. In other words, picture an indoor/outdoor Manhattan Mini-Storage (which has small units) where each storage unit is a little shop.

I got there around 4:30 pm or so, which turned out to be perfect timing. It was early enough that pretty much everything was still open, but late enough that the crowds had really thinned out. Some friends of mine (Matt – the SPA for coops – and his girlfriend Sophie) went the week before around 2 pm, and the streets were so jammed that they said it was hard to find space to answer your phone. When Mercato is crowded, it’s also more dangerous because the lack of personal space makes it easier for pickpockets and thieves. In fact, when they went, Sophie’s necklace was stolen right off her neck. Someone literally ripped it off her neck. This is probably why people who work for the American Embassy are forbidden from going to Mercato.

I, however, found it a fairly pleasant experience. I found a bunch of stuff cheaper than I’ve seen it elsewhere. This is all post negotiation, of course. I bought a thin foam mattress (I was getting tired of the hardwood floor without carpet or anything) for 300 birr when the original quoted price was 700 birr. I still may have gotten ripped off (though they seemed pretty upset to sell it to me at that price, which is normally a good sign) but not by much.

Anyway, the market is also interesting because there seem to be clusters of certain types of shops. In other words, there’s a kitchen section, a blanket section, a clothing section, a shoe section, etc. It’s like a giant indoor/outdoor version of Walmart where every time you buy something, you have to fight about what you’re going to pay.

Picture time. Typical shops.

Pictures of the streets and outside shops.

As I said, the market encompasses buildings with both outside facing shops and interior shops.

I didn't get a great picture of a bunch of similar shops next to each other, but this is one of the stores in the "shoe section."

Here's the random guy who came up to me at the market, followed me around, and even translated some. Both weird and cool. I told him I was taking his picture twice. Both times he looked to the side at the last minute, and no, I don't know why he wears only one sleeve of his jacket.

Here's the place where I bought my foam mattress. It's like the one on top, only thinner.

At the end of the day, the lines for the minibuses get long.