A trip to the African Market

This past weekend we went to the Rosebank Mall (Crazy Little Man's favorite of all the Malls) where they have an African Crafts Market every Sunday.  They have almost everything you could want from a crafts market.  They have native dress, shields, slightly racist looking statues of african men dressed like a servant on a safari (think lawn jockey and you get the idea), and wood carvings like you've never seen.  Some of this stuff is gorgeous.  Some of it is taff.  But it's a great place to buy some interesting stuff.  Plus you get the satisfaction of haggling, which I have to admit I kind of enjoy.

What we forgot is it is a complete and utter mess for my little girl.  She has sensory issues, and this place was practically the Vegas Strip for her.  Loud speaking, bustle, crowds, music, lights and things she wanted to touch and smell but couldn't.  It was a bit much even for me, so imagine if everything is amped up to four times what you hear and then try to function.  She did very good considering.  When it looked like she was starting to lose her grip we took a break from our shopping to sit down in a quiet area, have a snack and some juice, and just get a bit of balance back.

It was then that we saw a table that had some fantastic wood carvings.  The one that caught my Lovely English Lass' eye was the carved Noah's ark, with small animals, paired by twos, and Noah and his wife.  Very cool looking, and I talked the guy down by 150 rands.  (Divide by around 8 for dollars, and 10 for your Great British Pounds.)  However, after another discussion with a vendor over something else, my daughter had enough.  It was time to go.

We'll still go to the market again.  (The guy we bought the ark from said he would have carved nativity scenes soon, so we're definitely going for that.)  However, I think we'll make sure Little Miss has enough to keep her occupied.  It seems when she does have something to keep her busy, she takes noise in stride.  After the market we went to the Spur restaurant I mentioned in an earlier post where they have an indoor playground for the kids while you eat.  Little Miss bounced up and down on their trampoline for about 20 minutes while we were there, and didn't freak out at all from the four loud pops of balloons.  Hopefully we'll figure something out for her before we head out of Johannesburg on our first trips into this beautiful country.