Tuesday, May 01, 2007
No deposit required – but you may have to wait.
One of the differences between Haydom and Canada is the consumption of pop. This difference is noticeable in the amount of people that carry bottles around on the back of their bicycle. A funny thing is that this is the only place I see them carried, possibly because due to the weight of the bottles. If you try to cart a crate of grass bottles from your house to the store simply carrying them in front of you, well, you’d have a hard time…trust me, I tried it. I tried it with the full ones; store to home, 1.5 Kms. Not easy.Pop is usually purchased by the 24-bottle crate. The bottles are 350ml which is much more manageable than the 500ml of the typical plastic bottle back home. Different stores sell it in different ways. If the shopkeeper thinks you are trustworthy, he or she will let you take the bottles without paying any deposit on them. I have arrangements with one store to allow me to do this. I usually buy a crate here if we are dry at home, as this is the closest store. If however I go there and have bottles at home I usually get a polite talking to; something like, “are you bringing back my bottles?” I say, “of course, hamna shida.” (no problem) I then get a sideways glance as if to say, “you better.” Then I go on my way.
Returning bottles however, is not the easiest chore. The other day I had a crate to take back to the store that is close, Marvin’s shop. I strapped the crate to my backpack and headed out. I hadn’t gone far when I bumped into a local friend of ours. She looked at my funny and gave me a scornful greeting of, “you can’t do that.” “Do what?” I replied. She did not answer the question, but it soon became obvious that she did not think carrying bottles like this was a good option. “Borrow a bicycle…Mama Kari has a man working for her and he has a bicycle that you can borrow.” She stated, adding, “We are not used to this.” She added waving at the crate growing out of my back. I laughed and said, ”its quite comfortable.” She was not convinced and scowled and said simply, “we are not used to this. Try a bicycle.” I thanked her for her advice and told her I may try that next time and went on my way.
I arrived at the store after getting many stares on the street, only find that the store was closed. It was about 1:45 and I realized that this was, most likely lunchtime. So I put the crate down in the sliver of shade along the building and using the backpack as a cushion on top of it, sat down to wait. I was quite an attraction for those taking the back lane past the store. Everyone stared at me, in my Tilly hat and sunglasses and they were all shocked when I greeted them in Swahili. Eventually another mazungu (white person) came to the store with his bottles and we waited together. We found this to be a very African thing to be doing on a perfect afternoon. It was nice when the storekeeper arrived 30 minutes later with a big smile and much apologizing.
The first time I bought a crate of bottles from Paschel Store, owned by a very happy guy named Frankie, I took them on ‘credit’. We took our time drinking them and as I also had a crate from the other shop I chose to return that one first, simply because the store is closer. I strapped it to my backpack and hiked to the store down the busy street leading out the hospital gate. The shopkeeper was happy to see her bottle and thanked me profusely. I bought a few things and headed back home. Shortly after that, our friend Tore, who had driven me to Frank’s initially, came by to say that Frankie had sent him a text message on his cell phone, asking where my soda bottles were. He had obviously seen me walking down the road with the empties and wanted to protect his investment. But, it cracked me up. So we returned them the next day to the great relief of Frankie.
This buying the bottles thing reminds me of the old pop-shop days when my folks would head down to the pop-shop buy some bottle and get some pop. We would never see any of that pop at home as kids but there always seemed to be empties to take back. I guess the caps weren’t too good and the pop would quickly evaporate. Hmm, then why would they buy more? Oh well, it probably would have “rotted the teeth right out of our heads” anyway.
So now I have made friends with Frankie and have bought a crate of bottles that can now be exchanged for full ones. Frankie says that every time we meet he will only speak English and I must speak Swahili. My response was, in Swahili, “Shida kubwa!” (big problem!)
