Shopping

Shopping is one of my least favorite things to do. Back in the US when I would have to go shopping I would try to delay it as much as possible, I would dread it; I would try to figure out a way not to do it. Anyway, I say all that to say here in Zambia I am doing a lot of shopping and it is stretching me. Now that I can drive I have to travel to Livingstone quite a bit doing different things. When some of the people at the hospital and the mission find out that I am going to Livingstone I get their lists as well as what I was going for. And there is no such thing as a short trip to Livingstone either. It takes a good hour and a half to get there and then I usually have lists upon lists of business that needs to get done.

Shopping is not like in the US where Wal Mart is a one stop shop for everything under the sun. Here if you need fruit you go to one store, and if you need toilet paper you have to go way across town. Looking for hardware parts is also the same. There are three or four hardware stores and they all have to be visited to find all the material one needs. The other day I asked for a pretty common thing, I thought: some soft wire for tying things. The shop I went to did not have it; they were out. I had to go across town. The shops are different also. There are no aisles to wander down and look. As one walks in there is a counter that you reach and you have to ask if they have the parts. Then they disappear looking for it. Which usually takes a while. After looking sometimes they have it and some times they don't. For me it can be a draining experience.

Sometimes a couple of Zambians come with. Usually we drop them off and I go one way and they go the other. They do their personal business and I work on my lists. But at the end of the day trying to get everybody in the same spot at the some time to back to Zimba can be challenging. "Let me look for one more thing." "There is a little shop on that side." After waiting for what seems to be a very long time everybody gets in one spot and all get into the truck and head for Zimba.