Dantokpa Market

We had an opportunity to visit the Dantokpa ('Snake out of the water' in Fon), Benin's largest market. We went with a purpose, to purchase inexpensive supplies in preparation for Christmas decorations at school. Our resident Beninese, Liliya (who is really Ukrainian) knew just the places to go.

This is the entrance from the parking lot. Looks like any other market to me!

 
The market is over 40 hectares (a bit shy of 100 acres) large. Apparently the stalls are arranged by items being sold. Our first stop was the fabric stalls.

Hundreds of pieces, called pagnes, were hanging all around. A pagne is about 2 meters in length.

Liliya knew which sellers were willing to cut a pagne in half for us. I was too overwhelmed to make my own purchases, there were so many choices! Apparently there is a fabric district in Cotonou that has a larger variety of pagnes as well as longer sizes of fabric. Yikes!

We were told to be wary of pick pockets. The market is known for petty crimes if you're not careful. We are also a bit wary of taking pictures, so some of these shots were taken from the car as we drove through part of the market after we were done.

The woman in the foreground is a good example of someone selling their wares door-to-door. She balances her tomatoes, in small bowls which are loaded onto a large platter, on her head and walks around, hoping someone will want some.

Here's another example, this time it's a traveling clothes rack! The clothes are on hangers, so it's easy to see what's for sale.

And more!

People sold many different kinds of items: shoes, jewelry, hair products, fruits and vegetables, cooked food, dried fish, housewares, belts, electronics, imports from Asia. This market is also known for selling fetishes used in vodoun (voodoo) practices. We didn't even get close to that part of the market; it's a place that US embassy employees aren't supposed to visit. That's not why we didn't go there, though. Liliya didn't want to take us there, and we were running out of time.

It is very common to see people selling gasoline. It is purchased on the black market and sold in small quantities everywhere. It's not what you'd want in your car.

Rush hour(s) on the bridge.

It was very difficult to get to and leave the market area in Liliya's car. As you can see from the picture above, traffic was quite congested heading east toward Nigeria. Luckily we were headed the opposite direction.

I'm sure we'll head back to the market again. Although we were the only fair-skinned people I saw, Donn noticed some Lebanese men walking around. Needless to say we, too, were a sight to see!