I had a dream a few nights ago. I was in America at the beginning of a salad bar. I got to the bar and they were out of lettuce. The manager told me they were preparing more and would bring it out shortly. I waited and it never came. I really wanted lettuce. I waited longer. The lettuce never came.

I woke up craving fresh salad and remembered that, in fact, I really was still waiting for lettuce after 2 ½ weeks of having none. And then there’s also the carrots, potatoes, green peppers, fresh oranges, basically most of our normal produce on our grocery lists had run out and there was really no chance of getting these things any time soon. I had a lot of dried food brought out to help with the lack of fresh things, but lettuce is one of those things you just can’t substitute. Thankfully, for a few days each week we do get to enjoy apples and bananas and tomatoes.

We came here knowing there was no market in our village. There are two very close markets in nearby towns that come through once per week – Monday and Tuesday. Then, on Saturdays there is a large market in a town that takes a good hour to get to.

Don’t be fooled. This isn’t your weekly Saturday trip to the Costco in the next town over. Trip preparations actually start many days ahead of time as villagers trickle into our home asking if they can go with us on Saturday to the big town. We learned hard lessons very quickly our first week out here with no local men present (where they were is another blog post for another day):

  1. Always, always keep a list of names (first come, first serve) or come Saturday morning, you’ll have a car full of people with no place left for your own family to sit and inevitable one or two women will absolutely refuse to get out of your vehicle.
  2. Never, ever let young men on top of your car. Sure, we don’t like to be the bad guys and say no. But the reality is, the young men are the bad guys. So are the police. The young men will go get drunk in town, encourage a young 13 something year old kid to get so drunk he passes out on top of your car (which you don’t even realize he’s climbed up on…in fact, how did he even get up there?) and then he will proceed to puke all over your car windshield. Very likely, as you’re trying to wipe the puke away, your windshield washing fluid will run out and then, that’s just bad. To top it off, the local town police will pull you in to their office, rant and rage, calling you racist because you put black people on top of your car (seriously dude? We didn’t even want them there in the first place! And also, what other type of people could we actually put on top of our car? We are, after all, in Africa.) Then he’ll take you to the back, threaten jail time for having people on top of your car, demand $100 or so, then tell you to drive out of town, meet the guys and let them climb on the top of your car once you’re out of town. One day we’ll laugh about it, friends, but right now, well, all I can say is, you seriously can’t make this stuff up.
  3. Back to the lettuce: if you want lettuce at the once-a-week market an hour’s drive away, you need to leave early enough to get there before the sun is too high and all the lettuce is sold. Drop all the village women where they need to be to pound their peanuts from their fields into oil, then you can go to the market yourself and get what you need.

The whole grocery shopping adventure that technically starts about the Tuesday before with people asking for a ride, will officially begin around 9:30 am and end at sunset when you finally, Lord willing make it home before you’re stuck driving in the dark on dirt paths. If you get stopped at the police station on your way out of town, though, you will very likely be driving on those dirt paths at night, hoping someone in the car can differentiate one dirt path from another and finally get you home safely.

(PS. I got fresh salad yesterday, so everything is looking bright today )