At the Mandela Farmers' Market:

We hung out at the market for a little while; people enjoyed meeting the vendors and sampling some of the delicious and very locally grown (West Oakland) produce.

We had an interesting conversation with Reggie, who met the last time we were at the market. He told us that this area of West Oakland is known as “Low Bottom”: “This is West Oakland, but people in the neighborhood, call it Low Bottom. The Low Bottom, they stereotype it, you know, as an area where there’s violence and corruption. But it’s really not like that here. People think the Low Bottom is bad, but it’s a good place to live.” He has lived here for many years. Reggie also told us that “People don’t really know West Oakland ‘til they come to West Oakland.” You can’t know a place from the outside.

One guy at the market proudly showed us his rig: he had decked out his rickshaw with a full sound system. He told us how he would modify our rig so that we could always travel with tunes. We were very impressed!