Shopping - Part 3

A new ‘import shop’ has opened in N’Djamena. You might not think that this is worthy of a blog post but, even for a ‘non-shopper’ like me this is an exciting event.

This shop is smaller than the other three main stores, that cater to the international and wealthy Chadian consumer but it is well stocked and has some positive features:

• Everything is clean and the goods are tidily stacked on the shelves in a fairly logical order (not necessarily a feature of all the shops here!)
• For quite a number of products the prices are slightly cheaper than the other shops. I guess time will tell if these are actually ‘opening offers’
• There is a larger selection of both cooked and frozen meats than any of the other shops and, surprisingly, this includes bacon – a rare commodity in this city
• One whole shelf is full of beer, wine and spirits, which is something the other shops don’t stock at all. Alcohol is available in the city – in restaurants and in local bars – but it is not something you see around you all the time
• An assistant carried my shopping basket around for me. I am not sure if this is a standard feature of their customer service or was just because she was bored.

They have yet to get a till so my bill was added up on a calculator and there was no receipt so I have to trust that they charged me correctly. Somehow this didn't seem so bad for what was a reasonably pleasant shopping experience (and pleasant and shopping are not words I naturally put together in the same sentence!)

A definite added bonus is that it has not yet been discovered by the street sellers and beggars so I was able to walk to and from my car without being followed by an assortment of small children and young men.

I shall certainly be going back there.  I suspect it will soon become a favourite shop of the ex-pat community but at the moment it is a bit of a hidden gem.

Public Holiday

Today is Eid al-Adah (or the Festival of Sacrifices). It’s the Muslim holiday that celebrates the provision of the ram when Isaac was almost sacrificed on the altar by Abraham and it is a public holiday in Chad.

I was a bit more prepared for this public holiday than I was for the last one, Eid al-Fitr, which celebrates the end of Ramadan and whose exact date is not decided until the sighting of the full moon. This year that festival fell on a Thursday and so, by some quirk of Chadian law that I didn’t fully understand, the Friday was also declared a holiday (maybe they take the US celebration of Thanksgiving on a Thursday, followed by a Friday holiday as their benchmark for this?). It also happened to be Independence Day on the Sunday and so the Monday was then declared a public holiday, meaning it should have been a five-day weekend. However, as none of this seemed to be known beforehand (we had to wait for it all to be confirmed on the radio the day before) I seemed to end up working pretty much as usual, albeit at a slightly slower pace.

Today has ended up being a bit the same. I was looking forward to the office being closed, to being able to do a few bits of essential work at home and then taking the rest of the day off. But then late yesterday afternoon we received a request for a flight today and so all our plans changed. I did manage a slightly later start to the day than normal, although the chanting and preaching from the local mosque was not particularly conducive to a long lie-in. I worked from home until just after lunch when I headed to the hangar to do the flight-following for the return leg of today’s flight.

As I left the compound there were a handful of men outside the neighbour’s compound praying (or washing prior to praying) on the mats they had lain on the ground. This is not something that they do there every day so I think they are also preparing for a big celebration this evening. Usually at that time of day the roads are busy – full of people on foot, bicycles and motorbikes or in cars, taxis and buses. But today the streets were practically deserted. The guards, who would normally check rigorously everyone’s ID as they enter the airport, just gave me a cursory glance and didn't bother to stir from the chairs that they had carefully positioned under the shade of a nearby tree. The usually bustling and chaotic freight area, which all imported goods must pass through, was eerily quiet. Our day guard seemed more bored than usual, without the other staff to talk to or the interruptions of visitors to the hangar.

On the drive home this evening there was a bit more activity than there had been earlier but it was still pretty quiet. Today is the day that many sheep are slaughtered as part of the celebrations and you often hear stories of the streets running with blood as this takes place in full view of anyone who may be passing. I certainly saw nothing like that today, although maybe I was driving in the ‘wrong’ parts of the city. To me it just seemed that N'Djamena was closed for the day.