On Saturday as I drove into our nearest
town, Kandi, to do our weekly shop, I remembered how Marc, baby Simon
and I used to do our weekly shop on Saturday mornings at Tesco when
we were at Bible College. Saturday morning may still be my shopping
time, but what a different trip it is!
So I thought that for this post I would
describe a typical Saturday shopping trip these days. I drive to
Kandi through open countryside with trees and a few round huts dotted
about. At this time of year it is all very green, and crops are
growing fast. After less than ten minutes I arrive in Kandi, and
drive through it on the main road, dodging motorbikes, bikes,
pedestrians, sheep, goats and so on as I go … there is no pavement
so we all share the not-particularly-wide road! Not-particularly-wide
but pretty busy as it is the main North-South road in Benin.
I stop first at the shop which looks
most like a shop in the West – it has swing doors and a TV
constantly playing. The shelves are all fairly temporary-looking
though, and although they do sometimes sell some things you can't
find anywhere else in Kandi – Pringles, fruit juices and even Heinz
salad cream – the prices of these things are such that I would
rarely buy them. Instead I tend to buy cheap biscuits (for our boys
and their friends), yoghurts, mayonnaise, peanuts and occasionally
sausages (just the industrial sort) or butter. The person at the till
is usually a youngish guy who somehow managed to work out that Marc
and I belong together despite us never having been to the shop at the
same time! If he isn't there it is an older woman who I think may be
the proprietor. As a general rule, everyone who is running a business
is friendly … though not necessarily everyone selling anything –
I've had younger girls going round the streets with produce trays on
their heads who were obviously selling for someone else and seemed
quite sullen!
I may then go on to the pharmacy. Some
of the pharmacies in Parakou look very like the bright, modern ones
you find in Europe. This one however looks more like the slightly
shabby ones you also sometimes find in Europe! They don't have a huge
range of medicines, but are happy to order them in, and I think they
are the only place I've seen shampoo for non-African hair in Kandi.
From there I drive back into town and
turn off the main road into what feels like the market, though in
reality there is a brand-new market standing empty (something to do
with places not having been attributed yet, or not enough places to
go around...) and the market sprawls all over the streets of the
centre of Kandi. I can usually park in front of the small shop owned
by the man who sells me flour … I say shop, but it looks more like
a large alcove. He has things out on the concrete in front of it –
mattresses, plastic chairs, hosepipe, lino – and inside he has
sheets of corrugated iron, suitcases, oil lamps, insect spray and a
host of other assorted goods. I greet him, and chat for a while, and
order my weekly 5kg of flour if he has it … and if he doesn't then
often his eldest son (who must be about 14) will usually run off and
get it from someone else.
I leave my car there, and cross the
road to find the vegetable-selling lady who brings cabbage and/or
carrots and/or potatoes up from Parakou most weeks. She tends to
greet me with, "Bonjour, Pèdè!", calling me by the
name of the village we live in.
I then go on to greet the lady I buy
onions from, and to buy onions if I need them. There are no loyalty
schemes as such here, but if you build up a good client-seller
relationship you usually find that prices are decreased and you get a "present" (ie. a couple of extra onions) added on. We
bumped into my onion lady at a wedding in our village, which meant
she got to meet Marc and the boys, and so she is even warmer towards
me now than she was before! I sometimes buy spinach or "leaves"
from another lady sitting next to her.
Then I go on to my tomato lady, who
speaks very little French but is always equally happy to see me, and
also gives me extra tomatoes every time. If any of them don't see me
for a week or two they always ask if I've been away somewhere.
Last Saturday I then remembered I
needed batteries too, so went back to my flour supplier. He had
disappeared so I asked his son if they had batteries. They didn't,
but he went running off and found some elsewhere, came back to ask me
how many, went away again to get them, came back to take my money,
and then did another trip to get my change for me! I would feel bad,
except that I didn't ask him to!
After all that I go back to the car and
drive round two corners (again dodging what- or whoever is in the
road) to Rosine's shop. It looks like a very small warehouse with a
front terrace. She has a fridge and a freezer and I usually buy
things like sugar, rice, couscous and pasta from her, and tinned
goods like evaporated milk, sardines or corned beef. Rosine is always
very welcoming and, having met our boys before, sometimes sends
presents of packets of biscuits home with me. And when our car got a
flat tyre a few weeks ago and Marc was having it repaired just round
the corner from Rosine's shop, I took the boys and we went and sat
with her while we waited for it to be mended.
Last Saturday I was surprised to see a
pile of three brand new fridges on her terrace. I said, "Rosine,
are those yours, or are you selling them?" "Oh, I'm
selling them," she replied, "Why, are you interested?" "No, what I could be interested in is a washing machine,"
I said, and she said, "Oh well, I can see whether I can get
one if you like!" She told me that the fridge suppliers have
their own lorry and so deliver directly to her, so I said that if the
washing machine suppliers could deliver all the way to our house I
might well be interested!
After leaving Rosine I drop into the
Post Office on my way home. The main part isn't open on Saturdays,
but the small room with the post office boxes is, and so I check
ours. It always makes me very happy if I find post there!
And off home I go. It probably takes
about as long as it used to take us to do our Tesco shop, and it's
less convenient but also less expensive, and there is definitely more
personal contact with the people I meet.
