Balogun Revisited

I few weeks back, I wrote a post about the Balogun Market. It is right over the third mainland bridge to Lagos. What a place it is!!! Yesterday, I went with a few ladies from my compound, and a security guard who was armed with a gun. But, this time, at least, it wasn't a machine gun...it was a pistol which was tucked into the front of his pants.(weird that made me feel better as opposed to a machine gun). Anyway, one of the ladies' stewardess went with us to navigate through all the small passageways there. This time, we went to the regular fabric market and the dish market. There was so much pretty linen there..and the price was pretty good. They wanted about 1000 naira( about 7 dollars) per yard, and I ended up paying 800 naira per yard. So, not too bad. I am getting much more comfortable with the haggling, (although, Hannah, the stewardess helped me with it). I felt good that at last I didn't pay the asking price for it. Happiness told me that you could find anything there, but this time I really saw everything. We saw dishes, blow dryers, party supplies, pots and pans, etc. It just depends how dirty you want to get and how hard you want to look for it.:) (Albeit, not all of it is really good quality) I do have to mention some of the crazy things I saw when I went to the market yesterday:

1) a man pushing a cart by hand full of wood the wrong way down an on ramp onto the bridge. Traffic was backed up for about a mile because of it.

2) A boy peed in a bowl, and his mother went and dumped it in the "sewer" in the market right next to where I was standing. (By sewer, I mean a small trench in the street)

3) A little boy squatting outside a vendor's stall pooping into a plastic bag under him.

4) a Little boy, about 2 years old, wandering aimlessly in a crowded street with just a shirt on...no diaper and no pants

5) And this is the weirdest one by far. The two ladies I was with and I were walking down one of the crowded streets at the market. It was one of the ladies in front of me, then me, then the other lady behind me. A Nigerian lady was passing us coming from the other direction, and she reached out and systematically grabbed all of our breasts and just kept on walking like it was nothing. It happened so fast ;none of us had time to react. Very strange!!!!

I hope the pictures I am putting up of Balogun kind of give you an idea of what this place is like. I took pictures this time while I was standing next to security. So, just remember, when you think you have seen it all....think of Nigeria.:)