Ninette

Ninette Oesi

This space I am sitting in is referred to by everyone local as ‘the containers’. It’s basically a makeshift shopping and social space where people sell goods from shipping containers. It’s at the far end of Ridley Road away from the main road and has it’s own vibe. It comforts me coming here, because I have never visited my parents birthplace in Ghana and when I come here, it feels like home.

There is something special about this part of the market. It has a bit of Ghana, Monserrat and Jamaica all in one place. Where everybody just comes together and unites through music, through sharing, exchanging different things like the way it use to be, back in the day. You don’t necessarily need money but if you have got something that I need and vice versa, then we can do an exchange or trade of some kind. So, to me that part of the market is helping me to feel a bit more in tune of my Ghanaian roots. It’s like a little snapshot of what I could be experiencing in Ghana. At a certain time of night, locals come out with their big pots and do this village style cook ups that’s how I would imagine Ghana.

My dad used to tell me off for hanging around here. He’d say ‘don’t go hanging around that place’. People think it’s wild here, but it’s not wild, it’s free and it’s Afrocentric culture. Older generations like my mum and dad can have different views of this country as they came here from Accra and Mampong in Ghana. They came here with nothing and built themselves up starting off in factories and then my dad worked for the council and my mum became a seamstress. I think their journey and hard work is admirable.

When I think of Hackney I think of comfort. There something about Hackney that I feel is pulling me and I associate it with the comfort of family. My earliest memories of Ridley Road is either walking albeit with my mum or step mum at the very top where Dalston Kingston station is before it was all built up like that I remember a jellied eel place. Apparently, people eat that, I have never tried it just by to look and smells. Being dragged through the markets and I remember spending lots of time in fabric shops. I do not like the meat shops and I remember being dragged there. So having to stand in the shop with the pig’s trotters looking at me was a traumatising way to spend a Saturday. The smell of the burning of the meat was putrid. I would rather do anything but be there. The same thing is occurring now, if my mum catches me on an off day, I am being dragged arounds the market still it’s still happening!