Living in Little Africa
Whenever we visit Paris, we tend to stay in the Butte Montmartre area, but this time we've borrowed an apartment in Rue des Poissonnieres, which, even though we're still in the 18. arrondissement, could better be placed somewhere in the sub-Saharan Africa. The surrounding area, Goutte d'Or, is a multitude of exotic grocery shops, beauty stores, fabric stalls and hallal butchers and the streets are filled with stout, black men and women dressed in colorful kaftans and flat kufi hats. We've now lived in the area for several weeks and we enjoy it a lot At the small market in Rue Dejean you find fishmongers selling capitaines and other exotic ciclids from Senegal - and at the green groceries you find an abundance of plantains and sweet potatoes Some Parisians think of 'Petit Afrique' as a dangerous no-go zone, but besides meeting an occasional, heavily armed police patrol, we've in the last few weeks only encountered joy and kindness when...