LARGE MARKET

This market is Abéché's main attraction, taking up most of the city center. Open every day, it attracts crowds of traders and customers from villages near and far. The covered part of the market gathers the shimmering stalls of loincloth merchants, the supreme temptation of Chadian women, the stores of tailors bent over their old manual sewing machines, a radio at their feet crackling with the latest local gossip, the stalls of spice and dried meat merchants, and the small huts of sellers of various products (batteries, flashlights, soaps, toiletries...). You can stroll leisurely through the shady aisles, haggling over a few products as you go, and chatting with the traders... However, when you reach the part of the market set up in the dry ouadi, the atmosphere changes. You'll have to squeeze between the customers crowding the fly-infested vegetable and meat stalls, avoid the little strollers selling fresh mint leaves or parsley, and make sure you don't lose your way between the stalls selling jewelry, pottery, clothes.. Behind the butchers, you'll find the district of gudhan makers (black bowls used to make boule), lôh makers (wooden slates used in Koranic schools), mortars, pestles and saddles... The other side of the ouadi is the interesting blacksmiths' quarter.