Going to Market

Living in Honiara means that we get to shop at the city market. It's bustling place, but it's kind of a fun place to go. The majority of items sold is food, mostly bananas, kumara (a type of sweet potato), taro, coconuts and fresh fish. There's a Solomon Islands arts/crafts section of the market where people sell their goods. Woodcarvings with shell inlay and shell money are two of the common crafts sold there. Shell money is made by a labor-intensive process of collecting, chipping and sanding shells into small "beads" that fit on a small rope and resemble a necklace. The fish in the picture look like something we'd expect to see in an aquarium... but they're for eating.