Christmas Shopping with a difference.....

This week we have been Christmas shopping for our children, but it is unlikely to be like anything you have experienced yourselves back home...
There are no toys to buy, no special sweets or videos, no decorations in the shops and no Christmas carols playing and this week sees the 1st of December... In this culture the thing that children love to receive more than anything is a new set of clothes and shoes if the parents can afford it....in our case we needed to buy for 250 children...which as you can imagine is quite an ordeal and costs quite a lot of money. It is great to not be caught up in all the trappings associated with the build up to Christmas, so much simpler and the real meaning of Christmas can be the focus.
So this week I was responsible along with Mama Sati and one of our Aunties to find 62 pairs of shoes for our girls and to buy the material for new dresses and headscarves to complete the outfit.
It was a memorable experience...I had asked them to measure the girls feet not really thinking about how they would do that !!! but these ladies are so resourceful they arrived with lots of pieces of straw from the brooms all different lengths with names attatched and little bundles of wool. So we set off for the market.....remember it is very hot dry and dusty here at the moment ...the shoe area of the market is a warren of small concrete stalls one on top of each other with narrow walk ways between...so many small shops all squashed together and all selling the same things it is mind blowing how they can sell anything all competing with each other. We arrive at the first shop and try and browse....but everyone is shouting out to us from all over trying to get our custom...one man persuaded us that he had wholesale shoes and as we needed a large number we followed him...down alleys and eventually upstairs to a shop full of shoes all sides of the walls...we are given a wooden bench to sit on and then are shown all the varieties...
The aunties are satisfied and so he asks what size ??? well i hand him a piece of wool and a wooden stick !!! and we begin...trying to keep the name and the shoe from getting muddled up. While we are there people keep coming in and out trying to get our attention whilst we are getting hotter by the minute and trying to concentrate on the task at hand. The measuring is very random, the colours and styles pretty awful nothing like buying shoes at home. We eventually have around 40 pairs and decide we need to go elsewhere for the larger girls ones...and so the haggling over the price we are prepared to pay begins....satisfied we hand over our money and then a boy is called to take our very large sack to the car...on his head we quickly follow behind and process once more back through the alleyways to find the car....we pay the boy for carrying our bag and then we have to go back and begin again !!!
This time we are looking for more classy shoes with heels for the older girls...each has given their ideas to Mama and so we look for shoes that to me are highly unsuitable for church in the village which is where they will mainly wear them !!!! but i have no idea but Mama knows what she is looking for !!! and she haggles prices and tells the men her exact wishes it is very interesting to watch...but time consuming as you can imagine :)
Eventually we think we have enough and set out to find headscarves. Whilst sitting in a shop on the upper level we suddenly see the head of a rather large lady emerge on a rickety looking spiral staircase...she is crying for help as she is suddenly frightened...i leap up and give her a hand and pull her up....a few minutes later we see a young man trying his luck coming up the stairs too looking for help !!! i told him he was not a damsel in distress ....sorry ...everyone laughed !!
Finally we are done and its 4 pm and we haven't eaten since breakfast.....and now shopping is over the ladies are hungry and no Mc donalds handy so we stop at the side of the road where they are barbequing chickens and fish on old barrels and wait while they cook.....eventually we eat and can laugh at all the craziness of the day....done for another year :)