Travels | Vietnam | Going to the local market

Going to the local market

April 2005

I live upstairs from a kind of hardware store where they sell construction material such as paint, electric wiring, fences, plumbing tubing, etc. The owner of the block lives with his wife and 3 children, between the ages of 8-16. They live behind the hardware store, and I on the second and third floor. The shop is busy as construction seems to be booming in Ba Thuoc with many construction projects all over town. Once I bought some rope for my hammock on the terrace, but I have not been a big customer for them…

The director of the project as well as a few volunteers before me have lived here for many years, so the owner built a separate entrance on the side to the apartment, protected by an folding metal gate which they insist I lock every time I leave my place. The front door on the second floor opens onto my living room which has many windows with wood bars. The furniture which was provided by CECI is simple wicker type with a bookshelf on which I have put my precious books. Next is the hallway which leads to the left into the bedroom, and at the end to the bathroom with shower and toilet. My bedroom is large with 16 feet high ceilings which gather nice black spider webs that cannot be cleaned. Going up the stairs we find the kitchen with the usual table & chairs, small refrigerator and wall storage units. The kitchen opens onto a large terrace with a great view of the main street of Ba Thuoc, the market area in front and the mountains in the background. Definitely a nice bachelor pad, as they say.

Today is Saturday and I will do my shopping for the weekend. People here often do not own a refrigerator, so they buy what they need for the day, every day. The market comes to life at the crack of dawn, well before 7 am which is when I usually get up. By the time I get there after having my coffee, it is already starting to slowly close up. At that time of the morning, my Vietnamese which is not great on a good day is even more inaccessible. Still, people are used to me and friendly, and all I need to do is point at things and smile. I have a routine now of going around the market to see what we can find which truly varies from one week to the next. The fruits that we have now are mostly the Japanese pears, apples, oranges, mangoes and watermelons. As for veggies, there are many Asian leafy things which I have no idea what to do with and don’t usually buy, and sometimes we can find potatoes, onions, garlic, lettuce and cabbage. A few rare times, I found some nice mushrooms, other times there were some nice herbs like coriander and dill. But all these disappeared one by one as the summer got hotter, and soon I could only find them in Hanoi, even potatoes. Sometimes we would go to the market in Ba Thuoc and there would be nothing.

It is easy to want to be a vegetarian here. A short stroll down the meat lane has low tables with vendors sitting amidst carcasses. Pork heads scraped to the bone, feet, tail, you name it. It’s all there with flies, smell and all. And dog meat. Sometimes I do venture in and quickly get a piece of pork, about the only meat I can buy here and eat. They love the fat here, so it is strange to them when we ask for no fat meat. There is another section with the live animals - that is the ducks and chicken. I could never buy one, kill it and pluck it right. So I usually ask my landlord’s wife to get one and do it for me. But Vietnamese pride themselves on having skinny chicken with tough and they say, tasty meat. I bought it twice, and could not get the little meat off the bone so I had to boil it and make soup. There is something to be said for our fat and unhappy chicken back home: at least they taste good and have meat. But then, with the bird flu that broke out and the district that decided to kill all chicken in the area, there was no more chicken or eggs for some time.

Each vendor sits on the ground with only a few things to sell. Today I thought I should try some of the leafy stuff which I never buy. I got down in front of a vendor and started to taste some of them, but they didn’t have much flavor. I think here they just boil these and the vendor tried to explain what they were to me, of course in a dialect mixed with Vietnamese and maybe Thai or Muong which I could not understand. Still, I continued my taste test and discovery, and even tho I felt uninspired. After all this, I decided to buy some and try to cook them. At that point I realized that a bunch of kids had gathered around me to see what the foreigner was buying. The vendor wanted 2 000 dong for the veggies, which is about 20 cents. So I asked the kids if they thought it was expensive, and the vendor answered that it wasn’t and added a few more bunches of non-identifiable greens to the deal. The exchange was nice with lots of smiles and laughter, and a few words here and there in Vietnamese, the occasional “ok?” “ok!” to complete our sale and a final « Cam on bà » to thank her upon leaving.

This was my day to try things out so I went to the straw huts with little wood burning stoves and sat down. The vendor showed me the rice floor crepes that she stuffs with pork meat, cooks in a pan and then rolls. You then take one and dip it in fish sauce with a little hot pepper, and they are actually quite delicious. I had a few and again this cost so little, only 2 000 dong, and this is typical Vietnamese breakfast.

After this, I went to a small table with lots of different containers like dried fruits and jellies. I had seen her pile these in a cup with shaved iced, and this reminded me of a similar desert I had tried and loved in Cambodia. So I sat down and watched her prepare this, with sticky rice, beans, coconut jellies and all for only 1 000 dong (10 cents). I took a chance with the ice, not wanting to miss anything of the “special” mix and it was delicious. Not too sweet, with many tastes and textures, and people had once again gathered to see if I would actually eat this. I could not picture people from home eat this though, as we have gotten used to “refined” and very sweet deserts.

There were 3 young boys who kept following me. There were wearing brown pants and dirty shirts, messed up hair, black or brown teeth and had between 7-10 years of age. They seemed shy but smiled from time to time and one of them in particular got my attention. There was just something in his look that reached my heart, a little wild yet curious. If I moved in his direction, he ran away. He seemed very poor, and I wondered if he was hungry and would like one of the deserts I was having. I also wondered if he had a family, a home. Was he a street child? Are there any here in Ba Thuoc? The 2 others eventually left but he kept following me and it felt a bit like our souls we connecting. I’ve rarely had this impression, but a little like when you cross someone in the street, your eyes meet and you feel like you know each other. I finished my desert and left, and he followed me. At the entrance of the market, when I crossed the street to get to my block, he stopped. Just before entering my apartment, I looked toward the market and he was still there, looking in my direction. I waved to him goodbye, but he didn’t answer.

After coming home and unpacking my groceries, I sat down and thought about him and my dream of one day adopting. My imagination ran wild and I could see myself with him, feeding him and taking him into my life. I would set up a bed for him in the living room and we would learn bit by bit to communicate. I have always believed that dreams feed the soul until they can become reality. It probably will not be this boy who will share my life, but he made me realize that the day might not be so far away. I could see it so clearly. I never did see the boy again at the market, but it stirred up something in me that lived on.