5 February 2019

Part of adjusting to a new place is learning where to buy groceries. I'm still learning, but I am glad to say I've found the Wegman's/Publix/Whole Foods/Central Market (pick your favorite local bougie grocery store) of Bere.

The store doesn't exactly have a name. We call them the produce ladies. Well, they have names, but their store doesn't.

They show up under the mango tree just inside the gate of the hospital compound every Tuesday and Friday. Their produce is not the cheapest, but it's good stuff. The potatoes, beets, onions, carrots, and tomatoes they bring are bigger and more colorful than the ones in the local market. They bring produce from Moundou, the commercial capital of Chad, and sometimes it is imported from Cameroon or other countries. I've seen them bring apples (pommes de France in the local French) imported from France, and other fruit occasionally from South Africa. I also buy flats of eggs from them (the kittens eat lots of eggs). I haven't seen any official certification of this, but I'm pretty sure they're cage-free, free-range, pasture-raised, organic eggs. Pretty sure these chickens wouldn't get antibiotics, even if they needed them. But today I paid $6.50 for 30 of them. Not bad for fresh, ethical eggs.

Today the produce lady brought an exciting new find (new to me anyway)--grapefruit! Apparently they grow them in Moundou. She called them oranges when she sold them to me, but they were definitely grapefruit; sweet, juicy grapefruit. Now if they would just bring some Home Run Inn pizza like Publix, and maybe some fancy cheese and bread and gelato and mochi like Central Market!