In Nsukka, people didn't go to the local convenience store to buy things. Any shopping you needed to do, you did in the central market place. This is how commerce is done throughout Africa. Every city and town has a market, most of them huge, open air deals. There is no way you can miss these markets. They are loud, they are colorful, they are crowded, but the first thing that hits the Western visitor (like me) is the fact that.... they stink! Yes, take thousands of people coming to one area every single day of the week and don't provide running water. See what happens. There was one disgusting area that was really like a big tent. It was dug out into a huge pit and this is where people went to the bathroom. That's right, men, women, and kids, all gathered around the foulest smelling pit you can imagine. the market workers shovel some sort of chemical in the pit every so often, but there is no escaping the odor. The smell is not just from humans, however. Remember this is an African market and while you can buy chicken breast cut up, it is very expensive. Most people just buy their own chickens. This is true for most livestock so compounding the odor problem is all this livestock. Yes, going to the market was an eye and nose opener for me. So I had no stomach to buy meat or food prepared in such a place when I first visited the market. But I needed to eat. I found a section of the market where fruit and nuts were sold and I bought a huge amount of peanuts (called "groundnuts") and bananas. Nigerian bananas are the best. They are very small and very juicy. Thankfully, they are also very healthy because during the six months I lived in Nigeria, my diet was over 90 percent composed of ground nuts, bananas, and rice.