A market where retailers (a women majority) sell oranges, nail polish, pills for all kind of ailments, even Parkinson's disease, vegetables, fruit, spices, soap, clothes hangers, candles, "gold" necklaces, phone cards and even phone calls, a market where thousands of people shout prices, bargains, eat, sleep, struggle for a living...

"Mango season has came .... I was really looking for it.... So far for us this season fruit, isn't it? And I usually remember mangos because I know two or three women who sell them in the street (such a delicious fruit!).They have their own mango tree at home (or at neighbours home) so that when mangos are ripe they have something more to offer to earn theirs living .... And they just do it in the street as they have not any other place.
 
Some years ago Petionville market began to be popular due to the great amount of people who come up this "upper" quartet from the city to take shelter from the violence that this country suffered between 2004 and 2005.

Last Monday in the early morning, the police began to dismantle the four our five millions of woods, sticks, planks, cloths and plastics which formed the market, in such a way that when saleswoman arrived for their daily work,  they could not even stay in the place they used to due to their seniority and they were encouraged to move quickly to a new area  in order to get some of the free places .... (because they were kindly informed that most of the places in the new area were already given to relatives, friends or some acquaintance creditors or whatever related to the people of the town hall responsible of this "fair" distribution... uf!). 

These and others (as the regularization of the license plate) are logical measures, hygienic, popular, but many things should start with the establishment of a fair tax collection system (if it does exist!) because in the end it is always the same people who pay the piper.... The people who has no money to pay the school of their children, those with an amputated foot due to a badly cured injury because they cannot afford to pay the right medicine, those who get off a tap-tap because they don't have one gourde ... Sorry, I am making a mess of this and I should not!

Monday morning what I unexpectedly came across while I crossed the market to take my first tap-tap of the day was a crowd added to the one I usually passed by (then, two crowds!). One crowd crying, singing, jumping and what it is worst.... completely exacerbated. I could see hundreds and hundreds of people joining to those already existing and that come in abundance to demonstrate with the others. I could see young people nothing to do with the market but with the shortage of this life more and more oppressive. I could see a huge crowd crying in one voice under the same motto "Stop, we are hungry". I could see one of the woman I often bought mangos from, jumping, singing, crying beside of herself, with a piece of timber putting all her heart on it with the only purpose that somebody listened to her saying.... "I am hungry!".

On Monday Petionville market was closed down, but I will keep on buying mangos in the street".