Tuesday at the market

We had a late afternoon visit to the Mercado Central on Tuesday to get the fresh veggies for our zone conference on Wednesday.  As always it was an enlightening experience and new things to see:

The newly elected president of the city was here so the women were dancing in his honor.
They saw Toby taking their picture so I gave them the thumbs up sign and
they got a little livelier.

We have seen this at the market and wondered about it.  The Elders said they
just thought it was "poop".  So I asked and it is tobacco twisted an rolled into
these circles.  He takes a knife and cuts you off a chunk. I thought
it might make a rather large chew!

We were searching for lettuce and found lovely greens like these.  But
in Mozambique most greens are cooked, like spinach and they
told us they weren't for salads and lettuce was out of season.  So
we ended up with some cabbage instead.

I love crab, but these guys at the bottom of the barrel were not
very appetizing to me.

I have had another mouse sighting in the house and saw a rat
jumping on the drain pipe.  So I asked the guy in the plaid shirt
for a trap to kill them.  There are no mouse traps, but this is a rat trap.  My sign
language of slitting the rats throat came in handy here.  I suddenly heard
a voice yelling "Debbie" and my husband said my skirt had slid down quite
far in back as I was standing there.  So glad I had the camera.  Knit skirts and
slippery undies and sweat  were the culprits I suppose.

A few hours later and taking the visitors for our missionary meeting to
dinner we came home and this is what the guard showed me.  He
baited it with a piece of coconut which he says rats love.  I paid my
prize money to him of 50mt for each rat.  He went to the market and
bought a new shirt.  Number two was killed today and three should be going to heaven soon.
They are in the roof of the church.  I love having a guard!

I had seen these at the market and  didn't get a picture, so I took
one at the neighborhood store.  They look like giant old fashioned
erasers, but they are soap for washing clothes by hand.