Purchasing Produce

*From mid-December to mid-January my folks visited. Upon their return home, each is writing a post (or more?!) about some part of the experience. Here is another from my Mom.

We bought most of our fresh produce from roadside vendors or the open markets.  We bought lots of tomatoes, eggplant, onions and green peppers.  We also got wild mushrooms (they were full of sand), green beans, apples, oranges, green onions, cilantro, zucchini, potatoes, garlic, and leeks. Zachary even splurged and bought asparagus for our homemade Christmas dinner (roast chicken, bread stuffing with sage from La Grande, sweet potato soufflé).

It was common to see a vendor with a small quantity of bananas set up along the street or carrying them in a basket on her head or pushing them in a cart.  Zach’s strategy was to hand them a 100 kwacha bill (about 30 cents) as though we knew what that would buy and just see how many bananas would be handed over—usually about 6!  However, with almost everything else there was a required negotiation about the price. 

Mango barrage!

 It was always easier to get something if there was only one seller but it was amazing how a gang would appear if they detected that a sales might be in the offing. Stopping to buy something could create a mob scene.  Mangoes were ripe and available everywhere when we first arrived.  At one stop about 15 children descended on Dale, all offering large quantities of mangoes, each assuring that his mangoes were the best.  Dale finally made his purchase from one shy little girl.  We never knew if she had to share her money with all those bigger, louder children.     Toward the end of our stay, pineapples became available.  Zachary and I were out in the rain when I decided I would really like pineapple before we left Malawi.  So he asked one of the banana sellers what a pineapple should cost.  She told him 300 kwacha.  He then went to the pineapple vendor who told him 700.  They finally settled on 350 (about a dollar).  It was a very tasty pineapple.