Market Day in Kenema

Susan buying rice in Kenema Market off Kingsway Street
circa 1969
photo © by Chad Finer

During our years in Kenema we ate African 'chop' that we bought in the local market. There you could also get vegetables to make into sauces and you could also get 'dry bunga' which was an very odd looking dried fish. You could also get the hot pepper - that we slowly became used to. In season pineapple was sold more often on the street - it was skinned and left on its stalk - you ate it like a lollipop. You could also get shaved oranges (the skin was shaved off). In this case you squeezed the orange and got the juice.  For a while we also got beef in the market from a butcher who would hang the beef from a tree and hack off the portion that you wanted. Later on, a neighbor of ours and a Fula beef dealer (Pa Maju Bah), saw to it that his son (Amadu Bah) delivered beef to us once a week. I remember rice being  inexpensive at times but as the rains came and rice got scarce the price would escalate. Once a week we would head to town [Kenema] and the market to buy our goods.