Manda Hill Day

I took Grace with me this morning to Manda Hill ( the most western shopping center in Zambia ) to do some shopping.

Several little interesting things happened so I thought, hey why not blog about it since I havent done something on the every day stuff in a while.

These are just random observations, happenings, conversations from the day.

A few related to Gracie. Beyond the normal stares, smiles, surprised looks as they see her in a chitenge on my back.

We went to check our parcels at the counter and the guy there was asking about Grace. Whose was she, he didn't believe me when I said she was mine. So then after I explained we adopted her he gave the response that I have heard many times...Well you should adopt me! Why didn't you adopt me? . I ignored it a minute then he asked again and finally I said, well you were not sitting crying in an orphanage for a family...were you? Then when I came back out to retrieve the parcels he asked again, so when are you adopting me. I told him he looked like he was doing quite well and even had a job, to which he replied "well looks can be deceiving sometimes..."

Then in the store another woman stopped me to ask who she was, she was nice about it and "approved" in her own way and asked me a few questions. It really seems more strange and unusual for a white person living in Africa to adopt a black child than it is to see a white family with a truly African child in America.

Then as we were checking out at the register the lady bagging the groceries was very friendly talking to Grace and me and then at one point said, "You are a missionary, right? " I think maybe muzungu woman + black daughter + living in Zambia = Missionary ??? Not sure, just a guess on her thinking.


It has started getting cooler here which is really nice. But you see some strange combinations. A young woman with a sleeveless tank top type of shirt and she was wearing a fleece scarf, not just for decoration but it was tight around her neck keeping that part of her warm.

In Shoprite a young muzungu lady telling her mother, (read it with an attitude) "uh...They just don't have that great of a selection of Cat food/treats here." - to which I thought, yeah I'm just amazed that they have a whole aisle of food/ things devoted to dogs and cats. I mean we are in Africa, I don't know hardly any Africans that have cats and dogs in their house for that matter.

And truth be told, I am a cat hater.
You either love them or hate them and now that I am far enough away from any friends that have cats I can say that without anyone getting upset at me. (Hopefully)
So I was feeling no sympathy what so ever for her little fluffy not having the creme dela creme cat treats!

But for me, it was a great day at Shoprite. I found frozen blueberries again! It has been a year since I last saw them there. So we had run out, though just yesterday a friend sent us 2 big bags of dried blueberries so that was great!
I stocked up on the frozen ones and we are back in the blueberry business. muffins, pies, cakes...smoothies, in our yogurt.
I took about half of these (14 boxes) leaving some for others.( and I couldn't afford to buy all of them)


Then every few months or so they have a certain juice "secrets of the Valley" that is our most favorite juice here. It doesn't seem to stay long but they had that as well today. I took the last four they had.



The only disappointment for the day was I saw this chip plate for sale, with a picture of tortilla chips on it, only to be reminded that no store in Zambia sells real tortilla chips. And that is a bummer...


Then Grace and I got lunch and while I was finishing eating, a little boy sitting at a table across the way from us threw up all over. Poor guy. Poor parents. (been there more times than I would like to remember)
poor nandos worker that had to clean it up. Poor customers...who couldn't necessarily finish their lunch...well... ok... I think it was just me, because everyone else seemed clueless, including Grace who happily finished the rest of my french fries because I couldn't.

So that was our morning!