Street Scenes

Scenes from everyday life in Africa offer endless fascination. It is an endless parade of people and images seemingly out of the ordinary. Sometimes curious, often busy, sometimes inexplicable.

There's the informal corner market I pass on the way home from work every evening. Local woman gather to sell produce from their plots. It's a quick spot to pick up tomatoes, cabbage, passion fruit and tree tomatoes. Muzungas (white people) like me tend to be as much a curiosity for them as their produce is for me.

Locals cultivate seemingly any level, spare lot around town. During my time (January - March), crops were harvested and replanted. Here, inter-cropping of dried beans, dried peas and corn were planted. Everyday I passed a woman tilling and planting this half acre size plot by hand. Just one of many plots I pass.

City centers like downtown Kigali consists of this veneer of office towers and western shopping centers fronting a bustling scene of real commerce. Traffic clogs these back streets as trucks offload into small, open shops. Better prices can often be had with a bit of hard-bargaining. A daily haggle for moto rides has taught me the art of pricing.

And then there are the unsavory aspects of how food can sometimes be handled. More often in rural areas, but sometimes even in the city meat hangs from a hook in open air stalls. Produce can sit on the floor of a shop selling motor parts and hardware.

A display of their wares on offer adorn many store fronts. A sight I find charming. This is rapidly changing as cell phone companies advertise for customers by painting shops, many shops, in their corporate colors. Countryside small towns often become a collage of repeated corporate-themed logos as dominant companies go head-to-head for customers.