Hooray for May Day!
Today was May Day so there was no school. After a leisurely morning, Deo and I went for a walk into town via a road that would take us by Mr. Price, the closest thing to a supermarket I’d seen since arriving. It took us almost an hour to get there, but I was curious to see what was on offer and for what prices because pretty much all shops here are very small, some just holes-in-the-wall, that have a few jars, bags, and bottles of this and that. Often the whole storefront is behind a grill and you just walk up and ask the storekeeper for what you need and they put it in a bag for you. There are a handful of “supermarkets”, if you can call them that, around town (I’ve seen three), and I was hoping to get a peek after having spent $6 on body wash at one of the regular shops.
Well as it turns out, Mr. Price was no bigger than a good size convenience store in Toronto. Products were lined up to look as abundant as possible, but really there were only three or four of every item. What was shocking, however, were the prices: Two dollars for canned peas; six dollars for a box of cereal; ten dollars for a 3-litre container of vegetable oil; generic biscuits for two dollars a pack and apple juice at four dollars a litre. Wow. You start to get a picture of why people have so little here and struggle every day. They make thirty to fifty times less than we do in Canada, and yet their grocery prices are the same, if not double or triple what we pay in Canada. Gas is also about $1.50 a litre here.
We continued on to the outdoor market in town where Deo bought a few things, but where prices still held surprises for me. About 5 pounds of potatoes went for more than $2, while I remember paying about $1.49 for a 10-pound bag in Toronto.
Before going home we went for a drink at a café. Across the street was a store that stuck out like a sore thumb from its surroundings. It was a Starbucks-esque upscale coffee shop, clearly catering to the tourist clientele. Outside were two Maasai sitting and chatting as they filled their role as security guards. It seems this is a common job for them since they have little education but are known to be tough and good with a stick.
Over the course of our drinks, we watched from our 2nd floor perch as customers went in and out of the store – invariably white tourists. Afterwards, curiosity got the better of me and we popped in just for a look. You could have been in any North American city when inside those walls. The only indication of where you actually were was the price of a latte, going for just over $1 – a ridiculous sum for a cup of coffee for any Tanzanian. Deo didn’t even know what a latte was, so I had to explain a few things on the menu to him. We agreed that we’d come back one day so that he could try one out.
While I’m sure that that café in particular had coffee that Westerners would be very familiar with, for the most part people back home would be shocked by what passes for coffee here, especially since this is precisely where some of the finest stuff in the world is grown. Deo’s father is a big fan of coffee, but the tin of soluble instant coffee he has would, when mixed, cause most coffee drinkers in the West to toss it back. It’s not much more than coffee-flavoured water and they dump a ton of sugar in it, likely to make up for the weak taste. It’s an unfortunate yet not entirely surprising situation given the tendency of western corporations to exploit Africa’s resources and people. Most of the coffee plantations around here, producing some of the highest grade beans in the world, are owned by foreign companies (near the school it’s a German one), that export the beans and the profits right out of the country. The local workers, who perform the hard labour of picking the beans by hand and who we see on a daily basis on our commute to the school, get paid a pittance.
A country with the natural resources that Tanzania has should be rich, but I have been told that when oil prices surged and coffee prices crashed in the 70s, domestic companies and cooperatives went bankrupt and the only ones who had money to pick up the pieces were the foreign corporations. I am hoping to bring some beans home to share with the coffee lovers I know, but I’ll have to try look for ones from plantations grown and operated locally.
Well as it turns out, Mr. Price was no bigger than a good size convenience store in Toronto. Products were lined up to look as abundant as possible, but really there were only three or four of every item. What was shocking, however, were the prices: Two dollars for canned peas; six dollars for a box of cereal; ten dollars for a 3-litre container of vegetable oil; generic biscuits for two dollars a pack and apple juice at four dollars a litre. Wow. You start to get a picture of why people have so little here and struggle every day. They make thirty to fifty times less than we do in Canada, and yet their grocery prices are the same, if not double or triple what we pay in Canada. Gas is also about $1.50 a litre here.
We continued on to the outdoor market in town where Deo bought a few things, but where prices still held surprises for me. About 5 pounds of potatoes went for more than $2, while I remember paying about $1.49 for a 10-pound bag in Toronto.
Before going home we went for a drink at a café. Across the street was a store that stuck out like a sore thumb from its surroundings. It was a Starbucks-esque upscale coffee shop, clearly catering to the tourist clientele. Outside were two Maasai sitting and chatting as they filled their role as security guards. It seems this is a common job for them since they have little education but are known to be tough and good with a stick.
Over the course of our drinks, we watched from our 2nd floor perch as customers went in and out of the store – invariably white tourists. Afterwards, curiosity got the better of me and we popped in just for a look. You could have been in any North American city when inside those walls. The only indication of where you actually were was the price of a latte, going for just over $1 – a ridiculous sum for a cup of coffee for any Tanzanian. Deo didn’t even know what a latte was, so I had to explain a few things on the menu to him. We agreed that we’d come back one day so that he could try one out.
While I’m sure that that café in particular had coffee that Westerners would be very familiar with, for the most part people back home would be shocked by what passes for coffee here, especially since this is precisely where some of the finest stuff in the world is grown. Deo’s father is a big fan of coffee, but the tin of soluble instant coffee he has would, when mixed, cause most coffee drinkers in the West to toss it back. It’s not much more than coffee-flavoured water and they dump a ton of sugar in it, likely to make up for the weak taste. It’s an unfortunate yet not entirely surprising situation given the tendency of western corporations to exploit Africa’s resources and people. Most of the coffee plantations around here, producing some of the highest grade beans in the world, are owned by foreign companies (near the school it’s a German one), that export the beans and the profits right out of the country. The local workers, who perform the hard labour of picking the beans by hand and who we see on a daily basis on our commute to the school, get paid a pittance.
A country with the natural resources that Tanzania has should be rich, but I have been told that when oil prices surged and coffee prices crashed in the 70s, domestic companies and cooperatives went bankrupt and the only ones who had money to pick up the pieces were the foreign corporations. I am hoping to bring some beans home to share with the coffee lovers I know, but I’ll have to try look for ones from plantations grown and operated locally.
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