Hayestack

I went shopping today. This is not exactly news as I go shopping most days. Today, however, was different. I have given up looking out of the window in the morning and wondering what the weather will be like as it is hot and sunny most days. The days when it is not hot and sunny it is sunny and hot. I am not yet fed-up of this as I am still making up for a life time of sun deprivation. But when I ventured out of doors this morning the sky looked different. It was still blue but today there were some white, wispy things up there. I haven’t seen one for a long time but I think they call them clouds. There are two periods of rain in Namibia, the little rain and the big rain. The little rain occurs mid October and the big rain at the end of December. It was 1^st October today, so the little rain is imminent. Georgina and I are only equipped for the little rain as we only have a little umbrella. When the big rains come we are going to get wet.

The clouds were premature. It has not rained today. The only wet I became today was from my own sweat dripping onto my neck and trickling down my back. Had I stayed out any longer, the trickle was in danger of becoming a raging torrent.

Shopping recently has become a life and death experience, quite literally. Rundu has opened a new shopping mall, small, compact and boasting a brand new escalator. It has opened for business but they are still building it. To by a loaf of bread you have to enter a building site, and without a hard hat. Avoid the piles of bricks and dumper trucks. Weave your way around the scaffolding and pray that the workmen above you don’t drop a brick or piece of scaffolding on your head. Don’t look up or you will lose your footing on the polished marble ramp which, I suspect is Rundu’s substitute for a ski piste. Try as it might, I don’t think Rundu will ever be in contention to host the Winter Olympics. I inadvertently tried out the ski slope this morning and nearly fell on my first attempt. I was spared any serious injury (no bruising to my first attempt) apart from the horror of hearing the peanut butter jar crash against the marble ramp and realising the eggs were in the same bag. Miraculously, nothing was broken, though the peanut butter seems crunchier now.

Once you are in the mall the only other danger is from high prices. Food prices seem comparable to those in the UK, the choice isn’t as big and the quality isn’t as good. I suspect the managers ring Mr Sainsbury everyday to find out what he is charging. The shelves are fully stocked but this may be because no-one can afford to buy anything. Stealing isn’t an option either if you were that way inclined. To leave the shop you have to negotiate what can only be described as a tight line of riot police who will study your receipt, inspect your bags, eye you up suspiciously and only let you out if everything checks out. If you buy nothing you will be frisked. This, I suspect, may not be an altogether unpleasant experience for some, but Marguerite was outraged the other day when an overzealous guard wanted to see inside her handbag.

“I have come here to help this crazy country, yet you treat us like criminals.” She protested.

But all the stores are the same. They are all rife with crime and that’s only the prices they charge. Two new supermarkets have opened in the last month so competition may push prices down unless they, too, have a hotline to Mr Sainsbury. I am not holding my breath.

The most exciting thing about the mall is the escalator (I can’t believe I said that – my life must have become very sad). But it is a very versatile escalator. When I saw it the other day it was full of joy riders and they were going up. Today it was empty and the direction of travel was down. There are not yet any shops on the upper level so the escalator’s use is purely for pleasure. You can tell the escalator virgins as they have not yet realised that hands and feet have to be co-ordinated. One without the other spells disaster but great entertainment for any onlooker. One brave lady, the other day grabbed hold of the handrail as though her life depended upon it, but her feet let her down at the last minute. She was practically sprawled on the steps before her feet decided to join her. Her 2 children looked on aghast as if this monster was devouring their mother. It was not enough, however, to stop them trying out the novelty for themselves. Don’t mock. We were like this once.

Tags: Georgina, Rundu, shopping

This entry was posted on Monday, October 6th, 2008 at 9:46 am and is filed under Namibia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.