shopping

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.