My First Shopping Trip - Ft Dauphin

Wow! This rain is something else! It buckets down. We have a tin roof on our house and so the music and our tv programme has to be turned real loud! It is the rainy season here in Madagascar (January-April/June). Fortunately this morning the rain abates for a while and the driver fetches us for my first time shopping trip in Ft Dauphin. First stop, the ATM to draw money! The local currency is ariary.

Grocery shopping is done at various little shops. One shop doesn't have all we need as far as groceries go. I buy, together with Hilton's help (of course!) some cleaning goodies, some tinned peas, mielies, jam, dish towels and off to another shop called Prix Unique. Here I find Jungle Oats, yay! Ordinary sunflower oil, what I presume to be flour, and I spy the shampoo I use, deo and Hilton's Nivea products! Also L'Oreal hair colour, unfortunately not the colour I am currently using!

Then we hit the local market! This proves to be advantageous because I discover which side of the market I would prefer to shop at. Although, count me out if I have to purchase meat from the market! After this little excursion I could become a vegetarian! Not everyone's cup of tea, this market.

One side of the market - Ft Dauphin

The streets are like corrugated iron with all the rain. The odour, the smells are foreign and overpowering at certain times.

The Malagasy people are poor, yet their faces light up when you greet them with a "salama" and "misoatza" (thank you)......this lights up my heart as well. I notice not many are smiling. One lady at the market notices my ring from Israel that I'm wearing and shows me her bracelet, also made of silver. She is one of the few who seem to be better dressed......she likes my ring.

We buy potatoes and onions at a little stall across the way from the market. I notice the hands of the young lady serving us......caked with mud, yet the smile that lights up her face when I say misoatza is beautiful.

Life is hard, there is not enough money. The houses are small, scanty wooden structures, yet a simple word in their own language lights up their faces and I can only guess restores their dignity and I hope brings a little ray of "SONlight".

There is an elderly lady begging and children trying to sell me bracelets and necklaces. They see us coming.......but once you start giving in this manner you will be inundated and I'm sure, never able to get away! Coming from South Africa, we are not unfamiliar with this phenomenon.

We decide to have lunch at the beachfront.......don't think this is a clever move! Our waitress, Patricia, gives me another language lesson and is kind enough to write the words in my notebook, The lunch is still to appear.

Patricia our efficient, kind, pretty waitress

I order pineapple (ananas) juice while we wait for our food.
We have both ordered a chicken and tomato dish with sauteed potatoes.........
A fowl runs by......they are lean with the longest legs I've ever seen on a fowl!
My chicken dish arrives, I take one look at the longest drumstick I've ever had on my plate and my stomach tells me: "Please don't do this to me again!" The potatoes are lovely even though I know I will smell like garlic for the next couple of hours! (Woolies chicken, where are you!!?)
Our coffee is really good. Actually the filter coffee here in Mad is delicious. With a veloma (velooma) to Patricia because our driver has arrived, we head on home, just in time because the rain is pelting down again.
I'm thankful to be at home, dry and happy with many things to ponder........but right now its time for Nikita, coffee and biscuits!



Our long-legged, lean fowls