Shopping

The dangerous part of our new series is that we only post the special dishes we eat. Our daily Morwa-food:


We are so happy with the Indians! Next to ensuring our kind of food is available (Trade Center broadened their range of Basmati-rice again), they supply almost everything.
Our problem with all the Fongkong-shops is you can just buy what you see. Whenever you ask 'do you also have a red one, or a bigger size', you run into the language-barrier. Let alone asking 'can you order 50 of this dark-blue polo's for me', or 'I see memory-sticks, do you also sell usb-hubs?' We keep wondering how the Chinese manage, neither speaking English nor Setswana. But somehow they manage, and push a lot of other shop-owners out of business with their incredibly low prices.


You can get virtually everything in Botswana (except for delicacies like stroopwafels, golden syrup, muntendrop, and nice bilton) - if you figure out where to buy it... The needles for Maud's sewing machine for instance had to be flown in from Europe, until we discovered this small, dark shop, hidden behind the bus station. Mr. Nadeem disappears under his counter, and reappears with little papers, in which needles in every size imaginable are folded. Enter an Indian-owned shop, and you can explain what you want. If they don't have it, they probably know where to go.


Sometimes it's frustrating and irritating, this hunt for stuff. But mostly it's an excellent way to meet people and explore every inch of Gabs. As a bonus some clients consider us shopping experts, and commission us to find frames for our designs, intriguing stuff like swirls and menu-binders, and so on. Getting paid to shop - we know people who would kill for a job like that...