Point J: The Imvepi Marketplace

Beans, coffee, oil, mangoes, and more for sale in the Point J marketplace

Hello again! I hope it has been a good week for you. We are well here. By early next week we will have completed all interviews and firewood walks with our first 80 participants. On Wednesday we are planning to shift to working with 80 participants (40 refugees and 40 hosts) from a different tree-based program here in Imvepi. With an overall target sample size of 240 participants by mid-November, we are now 1/3 complete, which is right on schedule.

Many of you sent me questions about firewood collection which I have now answered in a Q&A blog post: https://www.refugeeshostsandtrees.com/post/firewood-collection-q-a.

A highlight this week has been the ripening of an orange-fruited shrub which is called araguana in Lugbara. I have not learned the latin name yet. The small fruits are very tasty and Robilert and I grab handfuls to munch on whenever we find an abundant source in the bush, right alongside our participants.

An araguana breakfast in the bush

Another highlight was finding a giant tamarind tree at the compound of a host which was still loaded with fruits. Usually these fruits have dropped by the end of March, and we were excited to find such abundance in May. One day while I was working on the refugee side I hired Robilert to harvest the fruits and purchase from the host. He was able to get 10 kg which we are currently drying and using for making tasty juice, mixed with ginger and lemon. We are saving the tamarind seeds to share with the Kyaninga Forest Foundation in southwestern Uganda, where they would like to try planting tamarind in dry areas near Fort Portal.

Drying tamarind after harvest

Although there are several small marketplaces and shops scattered across the settlement, the largest market in Imvepi is known as "Point J," located not too far from the settlement headquarters where I stay. Point J is an extensive, complex network of tents and small buildings which represent: barber shops and salons, butchers, mattress shops, kitchenware vendors, restaurants, phone and electronics shops, and much more.

Point J on Google Earth

These businesses are owned and operated by both refugees and hosts. Point J used to intimidate me because of the density of people around the market and feeling uncomfortable as a foreigner. Additionally, I sometimes could not figure out how to get from one place to the other and would end up walking in circles through the winding, narrow paths between tents. Now on my third stay in Imvepi, things are different. I understand the marketplace structure and have made friends with shopkeepers and vendors scattered throughout so that I never feel intimidated or alone. For example, a friend Jane has a small produce and dry-goods shop near the entrance of Point J. Jane is a Lugbara-speaking host, but we discovered that we both speak Swahili and now it is great fun to meet her and chat at her shop. I usually buy onions, tomatoes and cabbage from Jane, and she always tosses in a few more of whatever I am buying, saying "ninaongeza," which means "I am adding extra" in Swahili.

Madam Jane in her shop at Point J

Finding fresh produce can be quite difficult at Point J, and is dependent on both the time of day and time of year. December through March is the dry season when produce grown local around Imvepi is scarce, given minimal irrigation of crops, and fruits like mangoes and papaya are also not in season. Now in May, however it is easier to find fresh foods grown here, mostly on farms owned by hosts-- things like okra, eggplant, tomato, and onion. Fresh greens are also now available. These include cultivated greens like cowpea leaves, but also the very same greens our research participants are collecting in the bush and bringing to sell at market: amaranth, wild jute mallow, and different varieties of Hibiscus spp. Vans from Arua arrive to Point J in the late afternoon bringing additional produce, which is the best time of day to visit Point J and find something fresh to eat.

Locally grown eggplants, cowpea leaves, okra, and tomatoes

A woman sorts dodo greens (amaranth) at Point J

Two features of shopping at Point J are 1) negotiating over prices and 2) making quality checks. I am terrible at the first, and beginning to learn the second. Prices are already extremely low by US standards, so I do not think twice about paying .50 cents vs. .75 cents (USD) for a pile of cassava. For most others shopping here, however, I recognize this difference in price is significant and there are constant negotiations to get more with less money. Secondly, I am learning that every item purchased should be checked for bruises, signs of rot, or even taste. For example, some cassava can be quite bitter depending on the variety so my friend Grace (pictured below) taught me to request a small piece of raw cassava before purchasing to check for bitterness.

Quality control: Grace tasting cassava for bitterness

Dried goods including dried okra, maize, beans, cowpeas, and groundnuts

For prepared foods, there are many small restaurants at Point J selling the standard fare of beans, pasted meat, greens, matooke (boiled plantain), and kalo (boiled cassava/sorghum flour). Others make street food of "Rolex" which is an omelet rolled inside a chapati (comes from "rolled eggs"), and Selena (pictured below) fries mandazi or donuts.

Selena prepares mandazi for frying

Moving away from food, there are vendors selling used clothing and shoes, likely imported from the US though I am unsure. When we first started working, I brought two of my refugee translators to pick shoes at Point J, though unfortunately both pairs broke down within one day of use on firewood walks. Women here commonly have dresses custom measured and sewn by tailors using bright, colorful fabrics called vitenge. A dear friend since 2022, Mama Ester, has set up a tailoring shop and has been successful attracting staff from different NGOs as her clientele. I own at least six Mama Ester dresses myself. Mama Ester is from Rwanda and can source vitenge patterns from Rwanda which are hard to find here, selling them to other tailors. She also crochets bags and swimming suits for sale to customers here and in Kampala.

Shoe shopping with Tabita at Point J, and Mama Ester, preparing to sew vitenge skirts and dresses

My friend Vivian is a South Sudanese refugee who owns two hair and nail salons at Point J. Not only has she built a successful business since 2017, but she is employed by NGOs to train young women in plaiting hair as a livelihoods skill. Her shops have a jovial feeling and it is a pleasure to drop in and rest after walking around the market.

Vivian (seated at right) with two women she is training to plait hair

I will leave you here, and hope you are as inspired by the entrepreneurial spirit at Point J as I am. The last photo, taken outside a photocopy shop, is a shout out to my Dad who is a retired IT consultant. I teased him that he should now come and teach computer lessons at Point J :)) He said, "Maybe virtually." Wishing you all the best in the coming week!