Markets

"La Vucciria", Renato Guttuso (1974)

Si trova a Palermo il mercato per antonomasia, il posto in cui - già in tempi non sospetti, cioè prima delle mode - nello sesso banco si vendeva il polpo vivo e quello bollito, da mangiare rigorosamente in piedi,oppure si facevano degli ottimi panini con la milzae altri con le panelle, alias le frittatine di farina di ceci. E' la celebre Vucciria, splendidamente dipinta da Renato Guttuso, un termine che deriva dalla parola francese boucherie perchè il mercato originariamente era destinato al macello. Ora "cucciriea" in siciliano significa "confusione", ma si tratta di una piacevolissima confusione fatta di colori e di voci, di gusti e profumi, di persone e tantissima umanità.

Il Messaggero, 23 luglio 2015 - Marco Lombardi

Markets in Africa

This might seem crazy, but the other day I found myself again wandering around one of the most interesting markets in Africa. 

I was only 22 years old when I first entered this mysterious world. Here you find everything, much easier than anywhere else. 

Neat shopping malls are getting sophisticated all over, even in Namibia. Sometimes it is difficult to find simple tools.

In African markets you find everything! All that “everything” will able you to repair anything, to use an object for other purposes than the one settled for, to find again those things that were previously robbed. To buy them again. To discuss with people the price over again, which is never fixed!!! The beauty of non-fixed-prices stimulate your fantasy and your skills. 

At African markets, you can dance at the reggae rhythm or any house n rap. You can sit for a drink. Yes, you are right, even in elegant shopping malls you can sit for a drink. You sit in elegant and comfortable chairs. Big deal!

In African markets, you create your own stool with logs around you while, in the meantime, coffee is about to explode in its wonderful sent. 

In elegant malls goods arrive on trucks and minivans carried by strollers. 

In African markets, goods arrive on shoulders of tough strong men, around the waist of women carrying their babies over the top. Is it too dirty? It is only dust!

Is it a crazy world? Yes indeed! A wonderful and enormous world inside the heart of a city!