Shopoholic? I don't think so!

I guess when you think of what people buy in everyday life, it wouldn’t matter where you are in the world, the result would be roughly the same; food, clothes, toiletries. It’s how and where you shop that makes the difference.

Take food shopping for example, people in the UK tend to go to a supermarket, order online, or go to a convenience shop. In Tanzania we go to the Central Market. 150x150 square feet of open space packed in with stall after stall selling anything from fresh fruit and vegetables, to spices (half of which I don’t even know the name) to lentils, beans, corn and fish (I try and avoid that stall as its very stinky) and stalls and stalls of meat.

 When buying meat you really must try to avoid looking at the bugs and flies chilling just sitting on your meat.

I love the amount of fruit you can get out here, especially pineapple. So for one pineapple its 2,000 shillings. Which, wait for it, converts into £1.20. Amazing!

Little Swahili Lesson:

Banana's = Ndizi

Onion = Kitunguu

Pepper = chili chili hoe hoe (my fave word)

Very expensive = Ghali sana

Punguza bei - Reduce the price

And the most important:

Chocolate = Chocolatie (EASY)

So now let’s move onto clothes. Now I am not the biggest clothes shopper (that’s my little sister’s expertise) but everybody needs clothes once in a while (especially in Africa, with no washing machine, our house mama does a great job washing all our clothes by hand but it can take its toll on our clothes and I often put t-shirts on, get to school and then spot a hole around the chestal area, not a great look I must say.)

With little money the perfect place to head to is Memoria! Memoria is another big open market maybe twice the size of Central Market. These are all the left over clothes donated from western countries, Tanzanians make a living by selling these clothes at Memoria. You can buy anything from jeans, baby clothes (not that I would need any, don’t worry mum) dresses and bras (I am not brave enough to buy a second hand bra yet {well I say 2^nd hand but really it could be 6^th hand} but I may get desperate soon.) It is a very busy atmosphere, very hot and people shouting out different prices to you in Swahili (still practising those) and sometimes it can get a little overwhelming. I think my limit is one hour and then I am done.

I have only had four shopping trips there (I am very sensible and only go when I really need clothes), look at some of my finds.

So these skirts were 3,000 shillings each, which equal to around £1.75 each. Incredible. I bet you’re wondering why I don’t go shopping more, I guess if I was earning money in the UK I would be there every week. But for now I am very happy with my every-now-and-then trips, I can then enjoy my clothes and wear them until I suddenly start spotting holes in them.

There are even cheaper clothes you buy--they are stacked in big mound piles that you literally have to delve into to see. I found this cute pink dress in one of these piles, for only 1,500 shillings that equals to less that £1. Crazy! But once an item of clothing gets the coat hanger of honour the price goes up, so it’s worth a dive in one of the piles to find a bargain.

Toiletries. Well I am not ashamed to say that I am blessed with great parents who have sent me packages with enough toiletries to last me the whole year. So blessed. So I guess there might be a blog about buying toiletries when I run out next year. (That is if my parents don’t decide to send me more for next year, hehe)