June 24, 2009

Disturbing Grocery Store Visit

I had a disturbing visit to the grocery store called Shoprite here the other day. When we first came to Mozambique back in 1996 there was no such store so we are quite pleased that we now have a grocery store and it is a sign of progress after the war to be sure. But there are times that although you are in a grocery store and it almost feels like normal grocery shopping you are reminded that this is still Africa and you are not in America nor are things done in the American way. The other day was one of those times. I was walking down the isle that has items like canned food, flour, condiments and came up to the pasta section. As I was reaching for a bag of macaroni, I looked over to see an employee putting these two odd pieces of wood under the shelf. I had to look closer but upon inspection realized he was putting two pieces of wood that were to act as rat traps under the shelf. They had a sticky substance painted on them for the rats to be caught as they ran across the ground onto the boards. Now, I am not naive enough to think that the grocery store does not have rats because although I have not seen them during the day I have seen evidence of them on things I have bought before but I was a little surprised that the employee was so outright with his job of catching rats during the middle of the day. Although the store is only open during the day so not sure when else they would do the rat catching. Oh and yes, I did use the items that I had previously bought that had evidence of a visit by a rat. Even now in our fridge is a water bottle that has lovely little teeth marks permanently etched on the edge of the pouring spout. TIA=This is Africa!

1 comment:

roadrunner201 said...

When in Rome, do as the Romans, or uh, Mozambicans. I love that you shared this story. During my years of traveling with the Agape Puppets, I have seen so many things like this and you just have to deal with it if you expect to be effective in that culture for the Gospel. That TMI rule of eating everything on your plate is good preperation. I now understand why they made us koolaid with floaties in it. After being served soup in Peru with parts af a chicken that I usually don't eat, I get it now. (Even though back then, if no one was looking and I thought I could get away with it, I would dump the last of my koolaid behind the logs we were sitting on.)