Mohktar's Shop

The town nearest to where I live is Wanyjok, a 20-minute walk from my house.  It has a market (shopping area) to which I go once or twice a week. Food, clothing, soft drink and beer stores, tea shops and bars abound, as well as a few pharmacies, hardware shops and places that sell cell phone credit. There are also some bread shops, restaurants,  and a few tailors, flour grinding mills, and motorcycle and bicycle repair shops. A section of one of the side streets has a traditional market area where women sell perishable things like seasonal vegetables and leaves and peanut paste.

I get some staple items like sugar, flour, macaroni, tomato paste, onions and garlic at the shop of a trader named Mokhtar. He, like many of the other traders in the market, is from the Darfur area of Sudan. He speaks very good English and Dinka as well as Arabic (and probably a few other languages, too!). In addition to food items, Mokhtar sells things like pens, batteries, soap, perfume, toothpaste, and light bulbs. 

The main street of Wanyjok market

Mokhtar's shop

Mokhtar in his shop

Bulk items (not in order shown in the picture): ginger and cinnamon bark (for flavouring coffee and tea), sugar, flour, lentils, tomato powder, garlic, dried hibiscus flowers (from which a fruity tea is made)

Mokhtar's scale--I love the brass weights he uses.