But no olives.

Ok, it's blatant e-portfolio avoidance, but thought I would give an insight in to shopping in Ingwa (a certain young lady checks this daily with her tea- this should keep her going for a couple of cups). We've got one main shop; Spar supermarket (I think to call it super is a bit of an overstatement, but it's bigger than your average Spar at home). Sells an interesting and unvaried selection of things (a whole aisle is dedicated to varieties of mealie maize and pap) and when initially faced with it, we really weren't sure what we were going to live on here. But I'm discovering that each time I go, I find new things. Often stored in random places (self-raising next to the washing up liquid, in a seperate aisle from all other baking products, including normal flour). And ususally not in the same place for more than two weeks running. Which keeps things entertaining.
There's a vegetable section where you can buy tomatoes, potatoes, cabbage and green peppers. And occasionally mushrooms. A meat counter where you can buy chicken feet, ox liver, chicken hearts or the extremely unpopular, and therefore only 50p, fillet steak (guess what we're living on).
My favourite finds so far have been in the pharmacy and cosmetics aisle; the "grandpa" headache tablets (perfect gift for Deyo's upcoming 30th) and the SA brands of body lotion (called "lovely") and deoderant (called "she smells great").
And then the checkouts, where the Zulus insist on standing pressed against the person in front of them in the queue, in case anyone should attempt to push in (their queue avoidance does at times offend my British sensibility).
And finally the delightful security guard who checks all reciepts before you can exit the supermarket.

We tend to buy our bread and vegetables from the roadside stall. The friendly lady who runs it is a younger version of the WRVS women (every day the same items will cost you a different amount and your change will bear no resemblance to what you expected. But I think it probably evens itself out). She always has a smile and her small son is adorable.

We also have two random Chinese shops which sell a selection of electrical goods and cheap clothing. These are run by two Chinese families who appear not to be able to speak Zulu or English and all live together in an interesting take on friendly competition.

And there is Fancy Stitch, our art-gallery/tearoom which sells products stitched by local HIV positive women (for whom it is often their only source of income) and will I suspect be my source of cards and gifts for the year. They are actually currently running an exhibition at the Brunei Gallery in London (9th Oct- 12th December) which would be well worth a visit. My favourite of their gifts is the wooden olive spoons that they sell. In a village where you can't buy olives.