Fruit and veg shopping

I try to buy most of my vegetables from the local market. The produce tends to be fresher, much much cheaper and I enjoy the interactions. The selection available isn't usually much different to what you can see here. Potatoes you usually get from dedicated potato stalls. Similarly bananas and plantains.

Here is a typical "local" veg lady

Veg are sold in piles of 100f 200f etc depending on size and quality.

The stalls near the supermarkets have a better seasonal selection of fruit and foreigners vegetables like coriander, plums, broccoli, new potatoes, cherry tomatoes - and the supermarkets themselves have the fancy import lemons, mushrooms, lambs lettuce, iceberg lettuce if you catch them right - but mostly they are elderly sad examples.

However, the veg ladies near the supermarkets tend to be expensive (trying to charge 500f for a 300g bag of green beans, 500f buys you 1.3kg at the market), and also pushy trying to upsell "et les mangues, les radis, le brocolli". Mostly I don't need a kilo of anything except potatoes, so prefer the little piles, and to buy fresh two or three times a week.



and a carrot vendors tray (not actual vendor) - carrot ladies stroll through town, and will peel you one for 50cfa as a snack, as well as selling bunches for 100 or 200.


this isn't actually our neighbourhood market, as somehow its more embarrassing to ask someone you regularly do business with than a complete stranger.

The meat stalls - second and third grade quality meat - I of course buy mine from the supermarket, but I'm not sure that they are much more hygienic!