Hello Hivers!
Shopping for foodstuffs from the bush market during the weekend is one of my favorite activities. This time around shopping did not go as planned due to my health condition. After my discharge from the hospital, my doctor strictly advised that I do not engage in any kind of stressful activity as this might be detrimental to my health.
Well, shopping from the bush market is actually a bit stressful but fun. It is stressful in the sense that one has to walk from corner to corner and from one long section to another to pick foodstuffs.
Also, pricing foodstuffs here in my locality is a thing, one cannot just arrive at a particular goods stand, pick goods, ask for their prices and pay immediately without bargaining, this is so because goods and services from the bush market are not plastered with fixed prices. That is to say that goods can be bargained and bought at a favourable price convenient for both the buyer and the seller.
I love to bargain prices of goods each time I go to the market. Personally, I cannot buy anything from the market without bargaining because most times market women are fond of hiking prices of their goods especially when they look at one's appearance and feel the person is wealthy, they will just add about N200 to N500 away from the normal price of the goods.
Due to my health condition, I could not go to the market myself and my mum went instead of me. She bought so many things from the market but their prices were alarming as compared to recent prices in the past months.
Plantain
Amongst what my mum bought, were four pieces of small plantain which was sold at N2,500, whereas this same quantity of plantain was sold at N200 two years ago and was even sold at N500 a few months ago. I asked my mum why plantain was so expensive and she told me that there were no plantains due to wind and excessive rainfall experienced in this part of the world.
Mum further analysed that plantain seem to have become a foodstuff meant for only the rich because if someone went to the market with just N3,000, hoping to buy plantain and some other ingredients to cook at home, he or she will not be able to afford plantain this season because the money will not even be enough to buy the plantain and the other ingredients needed to cook.
My mum further lamented that she only bought this plantain as a result of my cravings for it. That left only for her, she would wait until we enter into the plantain season before she buys plantain or she would wait for the one she has in her farm to yield fruit before plantain can be cooked in the house because the price of an ordinary plantain is too high.
other things she bought
Apart from plantain, Mama bought other foodstuffs like crayfish, ekporoko also known as stockfish, periwinkle, fresh leaves for soup, fresh brisket bones, seasoning cubes, garri also known as cassava flakes and lots more. The prices of most things she bought had increased by N200 or N300.
waterleaf
The price of this waterleaf is also alarming as its price had risen from a bundle at N100 to a bundle at N700. I asked mum if these prices could not be bargained and she told me that she had bargained the price but the market women refused to sell to her, leaving her with no choice than to buy at the rate of N700 for one bundle. This made us use one bundle of waterleaf to cook a big pot of soup instead of the normal four or five bundles.
The prices of waterleaf had also been hiked due to excessive rain fall and this is not getting any funny. Farmers prayed for the rain to come and in the beginning they were all enjoying it but now, everyone seems to be crying because the rain is getting heavier, it comes along with heavy wind and becoming more frequent as the day goes by, thereby causing erosion and killing many crops.
In all, we were able to buy some necessary foodstuffs needed at the market and we are grateful.
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