In West Africa, commerce thrives on the side of the road. For 4 weeks now I have spent many hours driving along hundreds of miles of these roads in all their various states of repair and disarray, and I can safely say that almost everywhere there is a road, there is a market.
In West Africa, you can buy just about anything you want or need on the side of the road.
Thanks to the markets, hundreds of people are coming and going by bus, car, taxi, moped, or donkey-drawn cart at all hours of the day.
To entertain myself on these long drives along the Africa coasts, I made an incomplete list of some of the goodies for sale.
Enjoy the virtual shopping trip…
A:
Avocados
Air conditioner fans
B:
Blankets
Briefcases
Barrels
Beer
Belts
Bras
Bureaus
Beads
Baskets
Brooms
Bread
Buckets
Blenders
Bed frames
Students walk home on the Sierra Leone roadside as piles of trash smolder on the riverbank behind them.
C:
Chairs (wooden, plastic, metal, children’s & full size)
Coffee tables
Cinder blocks
Car seat covers
Computers
Coconuts
Carpets
Cellphones
Cement
Clay pots
Cisterns
Curtains
Caskets
Coca Cola
Woman in a market in Ghana
D:
Dishes
Donuts
Drums
Doors (both house and garage)
E:
Electrical Wire
Eggs
F:
Floor fans
Flip-flops
Fly swatters
Floor tiles
Fabric
Fake flowers
Fridges
Apparently God is in control of the refrigeration business…
G:
Gravel
Goats
Gasoline
Gates
H:
Hubcaps
High heels
Hoses
Hair cuts
I:
Irons
J:
Jeans
Most clothes for sale in West Africa are second hand. No doubt donations from the first world.
K:
Kettles
Kilns
Koliko (fried yams in Togo)
Kitchen sinks
L:
Limes
Lattice
Linoleum
M:
Mirrors
Mattresses
Music
Meat
N:
Nuts
Nets (fishing and mosquito)
Nescafe
O:
Original art
Opinions
Not sure what is being sold out of this store front in Ghana.
P:
Propane
Paint brushes
Phone calls
Pillows
Pork
PVC pipe
Pineapple
Plucked chickens
Q:
Quilts
Quik (as in Nestle)
R:
Religion
Rebar
Roof panels (corrugated metal, woven, thatch)
S:
Shovels
Seafood
Sex
Sodas
Scooters
Solar panels
Sofas
Sugar cane
Shoes
Sampling of the brilliant fabrics and clothes for sale.
T:
Tank Tops
Toilets
Turines
Tires (scooter, bicycle, car)
Tricycles
Televisions (flat screen and not)
U:
Unprocessed wooden logs
V:
Veggies
Woman selling cabbage, squash, and yams in Angola.
W:
Wooden boards
Watermelon
Washing detergent
Water
Wash basins
X:
X-Tigi Mobile (service in Togo)
Y:
Yams
Z:
Zippers
A man walks a roadside in Angola.