Shopping Day

As I mentioned in the previous entry, me and my future roommates (Rachel and Helen) went furniture hunting on Saturday. Our Japanese colleague from the Ministry kindly offered to take us around. Furnishing a house is quite a daunting task. Especially, the house comes with absolutely nothing. Not even a fridge and a cooker. On top of paying the six months rent and paying the hotel, this can put a big strain on our finances… The good thing is that we will probably able to sell most of the things when we leave, and we can recuperate the cost.

We went to a few household goods shops, supermarkets and electronic stores. We bought some stuff and just priced other bigger items. There is this one street in the old town area (I will write about the geography of Lilongwe some time) where people make and sell wooden furniture. We looked at beds, bedside tables and couches. I have seen the tackiest designs of couches, and we have no choice but going with these sorts. We will have real fun being creative and decorating the place with these….. We are still debating how much of an animal print fabric is allowed in the decoration of our common areas. I am definitely on the side of minimum animal print. We already live close enough to safaris. So, why do we need to make it more African??

The highlight of the day was in a market. We were taken to a local market where fresh produces, fish and other small commodities are sold. I love looking at colorful vegetables and fruits. We stopped at a baskets vendor, and we had a blast. We each bought a couple of baskets and were very happy with our purchase. They are so cute!!

Here are things that I bought:

· Blanket for 2600MK – still winter here
· Pillow for 860MK – so nice to have my own pillow…
· Cutting board and roller set for 800MK – planning to make dumplings from scratch with a roller
· Two wicker baskets for 1000MK – what a bargain!

($1CAD= 120MK)