Back in the U.S., I used to mark the passage of time by weekends come and gone. But here in my little village in Madagascar, where virtually every day looks much the same, it’s market days that keep me grounded.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, people come to my village from miles away to buy and sell all kinds of goods, from locally grown produce to household necessities. On these days, my quiet village transforms into a major shopping center, drawing hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people right outside my home.

During the market, produce sellers arrange tomatoes, zucchini and fruits in neat bunches and sort avocados and cabbages by size on their plastic tarps. In a courtyard around the corner, people line sacks of rice, beans, corn and peanuts in a row to create a makeshift walkway. Just a stone’s throw away, chickens and ducks sit in small groups, their feet tied together.

Those from Ambalavao usually transport their wares by motorcycle, van or tuk-tuk. They set out hardware, kitchenware, tools and plastic goods, usually on wooden stands. Other stands are populated by women selling bread fried in oil over charcoal grills, most costing just 2 cents each.

And if you were to walk just a few minutes south of my village, you would find dozens of people openly selling moonshine out of yellow plastic jerry cans, which is supposed to be illegal.

It can be overwhelming to see and be seen by so many people on market day. I can’t hide from anyone – not the curious children, not the locals I never quite found the time to work with, nor the one woman who, without fail, accusingly asks me why I didn’t go to church on Sunday. (The answer: I don’t love walking three miles round-trip to attend a two- to three-hour service in a language I still don’t entirely understand).

But really, I know how lucky I am. Most other volunteers need to travel an hour or more to be able to purchase the kinds of things people bring right outside my door.

When my cheap flip-flops break, I know I can get a new pair outside my front gate. If I need a tablecloth sewn, I can find a seamstress in the village courtyard. Here, stocking up on charcoal, peanuts, rice and beans is as simple as walking down the street with a sack in hand.

Never in my life have I had such easy access to food, goods and clothes, not even when I lived in my apartment on Main Street in Auburn.

But unlike the comfortable reliability of Hannaford’s expansive food aisles, every market is different here and I never quite know what I’ll find.

Leafy greens, African bitter tomatoes, hot peppers, bananas and red tomatoes are year-round staples in the produce area of the market. Depending on the time of year, there’s often plenty of other kinds of fruits and vegetables to be found, especially during the rainy season from January to May.

My favorite finds are green peppers, pineapples, squash and avocados. If I see carrots, peas or zucchini, I’m almost certain to buy them.

Purchasing food at the market sometimes feels like a game of strategy. Prices change often, even throughout the morning, and getting food for a reasonable price is important to me. My host sister Fanja loves to tease me when I pay too much.

I’ve learned that the staple foods are cheapest in the middle of the morning when the numbers of sellers are most abundant. But waiting too long to purchase something that’s in demand usually means missing out.

Prices for most goods aren’t strict, either. It’s tradition here to “fight the seller” and bargain for lower prices. In fact, purchasing something at face value usually means you’re paying too much. If a chicken starts at $6, for example, it’s probably worth $4.50.

I don’t love bargaining, especially with my local produce sellers. Money goes much further here, and I know these people have a lot more use than I do for the 4 cents I’m fighting to save.

But tradition is tradition, and I’ve found that people respect me more for negotiating. Most foreigners, not knowing the value of money here in Madagascar, purchase things at face value.

Knowing this, some sly sellers in the city have tried to charge me as much as three times the actual price. Once, a taxi driver quoted me $17 for a trip that should have cost $3. When people deliberately try to overcharge me, I don’t bother trying to negotiate with them — I just laugh and walk away.

Rarely does that happen in my local market, however. I expect that for most of the sellers here, it doesn’t even cross their mind to try and overcharge me.

Sometimes, I help Fanja sell goods from their small store in front of their house. Unlike other market sellers, she and her husband open their store every day of the week, including most Sundays.

There, they sell salt, sugar, coffee beans, baking powder, cooking oil and petroleum, among other small household staples. In stores like hers, prices are not negotiable.

Most of these items would be purchased in packaging in the U.S. But here in Madagascar, these goods are usually measured out and sold using a local system of measurement.

While some stores sell dry goods by the kilogram, Fanja generally sells her wares by the kapoaka (an empty tin can), by the madikô (an empty tomato paste can roughly a quarter of the kapoaka), and a small plastic medicine cup. Only the baking powder can be purchased by the spoonful.

As for the cooking oil and petroleum, she and other sellers measure out amounts using a series of small cups, with the tiniest one being roughly the size of a shot glass. Buyers must bring their own bottles if they want to buy oil or petroleum, which is burned by families at night to provide light.

A couple months ago while ladling some cooking oil into a bottle in Fanja’s shop, it struck me just how little money people have to spend here.

When people buy cooking oil, they often do so at the lowest price point, 4 cents. The same measurement of petroleum goes for 2 cents. A can full of salt costs 11 cents now, a big increase from 2 cents when I first arrived over a year ago.

Sugar and coffee are especially pricey. A can full of sugar costs about 35 cents, and coffee goes for about $1.50. Usually people buy these in smaller increments; 11 cents is enough to get maybe a dozen coffee beans.

With prices like these, I’m sure it’s not a shock to hear that profit margins are very, very small for sellers here.

I love shopping in my village market. But I know that my experience is vastly different from most people in my community, many of whom have little money to spend. I strive to save money on principal; for others, it’s a necessity.

So if any of you see me trying to argue down the price of a bunch of carrots at the Lewiston Farmers Market one day, now you’ll know why – that’s just how we roll here in Madagascar.

A reader asked:

What are some things that have become part of your daily routine in Madagascar that you never did back in the U.S.?  — Anonymous, Livermore

So much of my day-to-day life is different here. Most mornings, I’m woken up before 6 a.m. by the rooster in my kitchen. There are 11 chickens in total that sleep under my kitchen counter, and if I wait too long to let them outside, they get really noisy. I sweep my house multiple times each day, boil rice and dried fish for the dogs, and always make sure to wash my feet before bed each night. Lately, I’ve also been watering a small plot of sweet potatoes about a mile from my house and tutoring a small group of kids a couple times a week.

Have a question? Send it to [email protected] or by snail mail to the Sun Journal at 64 Lisbon St., Suite 201, Lewiston, ME 04240.

On a personal note:

By the time my next column is published, I’ll likely be on my way home to the U.S. It will be my first time leaving Madagascar since I arrived here nearly two years ago, and I’m not quite sure what to expect. On one hand, I’m really excited to see my family and friends and eat American food after so long (pizza! bagels! bacon!). At the same time, I know it’s going to feel odd. Do I still remember how to drive a car? Can my stomach handle the amount of dairy I plan to eat? Will I be able to enjoy eating out knowing how much more that money could have bought here in Madagascar? I don’t know. But I really am looking forward to coming home. By the end of July, I’ll be back here in Madagascar with three months left to go.