REAL LIFE STORIES: SHARING  WITH YOU

FORAGE FORUM

-- by Annie Glancey

Mention the word ‘Bazaar’ and the mind conjures up images of bargains.  Flea markets, stalls, trading-centres, school fairs, market, or whatever label New Zealanders attach to their particular bazaar.

So different to the “Bazaar’ or ‘market place’ of my childhood.

It’s essentially a place where people forage, haggle, and pick over the redundants’ of other peoples lives – an accumulation of bits and pieces of each person’s past, jumbled up for sale. 

Craft stalls; proudly display innovative and creative ways to use up odd balls of wool, and ends of material.  Pots of home-made jams might share a space with home-made sweets and cakes, and a neighbouring stall might provide the garden greenery - snippets of things to come, wrapped up in damp newspaper or hastily re-potted in containers of sorts. Used books, magazines or bric-a-brac retrieved form the attic, garage or a distant corner would be dusted off with a promise of a new life.  People and goods merge with the smells of yesterday; the odours of mustiness, incense and food and occasionally, ‘pot’ permeates the environment.

I try to sense the bazaar of an ancient time from that ancient world of the Middle East.  My mind’s eye travelling through the labyrinth of goods for sale:  Tantalizing aromas titillate the taste buds, the sensual feel of satin and silk begging to be draped and in good company with rich, thick carpets, woven in a kaleidoscope of colours.  Exotic jewellery displayed against the background of fine pottery of timeless beauty.  All these and more, provide a visual feast.

I almost hear the hue and cry of the livestock vendors; comfortable in the close relationship they share with their animals.

The alleyways echo with the ghosts of the past.  The imposing presence of Alexander the Great, Genghis Kahn and his marauding mob.  Queen Scheherezade, teller of tales, weaving her immortal tapestry and giving us forever, the illustrious characters of Sinbad the sailor, and Alibaba with his forty thieves.

I turn away from that great meeting place of Europe, Asia, and Africa, where important civilizations rose and fell.

I look down toward a place South of the Sahara and see the markets of my childhood and I cannot ignore this wonderful image as I suddenly discover the many similarities to the bazaar of that ancient people.  This concept of market place that embraces a fusion of cultures and the sharing of a whole way of life.

I remember the maze of passages lined with hundreds of stalls overflowing with goods; masses of cheap and costly jewellery that boggles the eyes and makes choices almost impossible.

Silks, satins, fruit, vegetables, crispy fried samousas and sweetmeats.  Food, food, food, displayed in an endless variety of ways. 

One quick turn, and you could find yourself in the corridor of death: Freshly plucked poultry, carcasses of recently slaughtered animals and fish hung from the ceilings high enough so as not to impede passage, and low enough to allow inspection.  Selection and price were always negotiable.

How could you get a bargain if you did not haggle over price and quality? I remember how ruthless and skilful my mother was in the art of haggling. This is the ‘essence’ of the market place.

Like the mythical labyrinth of Crete, once you entered this maze of passages, there was no telling when or where you came out.  It was often the reason I was late home from school.

No matter that I was severely punished; the fascination of the ‘Market place’ was an irresistible draw.   So filled with mystique, Smells, people, all babbling in a variety of languages. There were no lack of ‘Fagan’s’ either.  Experience taught you to hug your bag tightly to your chest; carry your purse down your front, or you could end up just carrying the handle. 

I would usually arrive home stuffed full of dried fruits and spicy delicacies.  It was never necessary to explain my lateness. The heady blend of eastern oils and spicy foods I had sampled would permeate the house and seal my fate.

Reflections aside, and back to this time and place I enjoy in Aotearoa New Zealand, where I must face the fact that ‘ Bazaar’ is synonymous with flea-market, school fair and the like, and I am far more likely to encounter bargain hunters foraging through yester-years treasures, than I am meeting the Lady of the Seven veils, or the thief of Bagdad.

-- Annie Glancey