Old Geezers & Cat Fights - The Orient Way

Some things just stay with you.  First impressions always linger, even if they are proven wrong later on.  When first arriving in a new culture, there are SO MANY first impressions that it is often impossible to forget them.  That is certainly the case with my very first visit to the village market.

My first trip to the market was a desperate move on my part to get OUT of the house.  We hadn't received our household goods yet and I was desperately needing to escape the continuous reminder that everything we owned was gone.  Loading up the stroller, my Angel and I set out to find this outdoor market that I had heard about.

The walk to the front gate from our house was a good half hour.  Knowing that markets are best visited in the morning, we headed out around 07:00 in the morning.  I was a bit nervous.  We were new to base and it was going to be my first time stepping out of the gates on my own.  Squaring my shoulders, extending both my military ID and my Orient Gate Pass to the heavily armed guard at the gate, we stepped into the rural village streets.

Everything was silent!  There were no cars, no people, no anything.  Shops were closed.  A bit unnerved, we walked along vacant shops in the general direction of where people had said the market was located.  Honestly, it was very, very eery.

During this walk, I could have sworn that my Angel and I were the only ones alive.  Stray dogs and chickens were the only form of life that I could see.  Because of the unevenness of the walk, there were many times when I had to lift the stroller and carry it.  It was during one of these moments when I saw something I had NEVER seen before.

In an alley way, at 08:30 in the morning, I heard scuffling.  Not too sure as to what it could be, I put my finger to my lips to tell my Angel to be quiet.  Walking softly to the corner of the building, I carefully looked into the alleyway.

There, in front of me, were two aged men, rolling in the dirt, hitting and pulling each other's hair!  Honestly, it reminded me a lot of the old cartoons where kids would be fighting and they looked like a crazy ball of dirt.  I don't know how long I stood there and watched before it dawned on me that maybe I should make a quiet exit.

Covering my mouth so as to not laugh out loud, I tiptoed to the stroller and turned around, to head back to where we came from.  You see, I would have had to cross the alley way with my daughter, disrupting the battle that those two were having.  Seriously NOT wanting to draw attention to myself or my little girl, I thought that maybe, just maybe, it would be better to try the market on a less volatile day.