shopping Nica style

I've been meaning for ages to write an entry about the different places and ways to go shopping in Nicaragua (apart from those two Managua shopping malls). Basically it all depends on how far you want to go from your house for your groceries, and how much variety you expect to find. First there are the wandering street sellers, with enormous woven baskets on their heads, who sell fruit, vegetables, sometimes cheese, sometimes loo paper, or other random items. But it can be a bit risky waiting at home for a vendor to walk down your street, because I never know when they'll go past or what they'll have. You can pretty regularly rely on bananas, satsumas, onions, tomatoes and these local small green peppers, but anything else (of which melon, pineapple, papaya, carrots and avocados are currently the next most likely to be available) is just up to your luck.

The next closest spot for shopping is your local pulperia - a sort of corner shop which is actually someone's front room from which they sell stuff. These dot every street, and vary in size from two shelves to an entire room. They sell all sorts of handy items: tiny bags of washing powder, a few tinned goods, the ever-present gaseosas (fizzy drinks), perhaps some butter and yogurts, beer, nail polish, soap, instant noodles, crisps, etc. Some have a telephone service too. But they are still a family's front room, so the family will hang out on chairs, often watching TV, in or just outside the pulperia. [N.B. Sitting out on the street in your rocking chair of an evening, enjoying what breeze can be found is the very communal way people live here - and we join in at Casa Santa Lucia too.]

Then there are the supermarkets, of which Granada has two. Although calling them supermarkets in the UK sense of a very large shop with regular supplies is a little dubious. Stock is never very reliable, so if you see something you might want you have to buy it then and there, because it may never be back, or may take a month to reappear - for instance there has been no peanut butter in Granada for 3 weeks now. And I've only seen peppermint tea on sale for a 5-day period once. Today I went to buy chickpeas, to find that there are none, and who knows when there will be again. So you have to be flexible and just buy what you can when you can.

The same is true of the main market, in that you can only ever find things when they are in season and available locally. Apples are incredibly expensive (about one US dollar each) and are sold from special streetside apple stalls. They are one of the few imported items you can get here, and that would be why they are so pricey. So the market has line after line of stalls selling effectively the same stuff, and you can watch the seasons change as the produce on offer changes. Currently we're moving into the mango season, although it's still on the cusp. Also avocados are becoming cheaper and better. And of course the market is the main place to buy anything and everything else you might need for the home. If you can't get it in the Granada market, it can't be bought in town.

Actually, I went for a fascinating trip last Thursday morning (for work, for the women's group) to Managua's Mercado Oriental. Luckily I had a guide - the little old lady mother of one of our women's group members - who knew her way around because that market is ENORMOUS and a complete maze of alleyways, passageways and stalls for miles. There were even trees growing inside. We walked swiftly for at least 20 minutes straight through in one direction without getting anywhere close to the other side of the market. My guide was very worried about my security and told me not to bring a bag in case it got stolen (and every guide book going repeats the advice that it is full of pickpockets, etc). But having taken this advice, I really found I felt very comfortable there and was rather taken with the hustle, bustle and general craziness of the country's largest and busiest market (and not another foreigner in sight). The way it works is that people go there from here, buy up stuff cheap and then sell it on back in Granada. So the microbus back to town was stuffed to the gills with all sorts of random purchases. Even people who don't run market stalls or pulperias will pick up a few things whenever they go to the Mercado Oriental and then sell them on to their friends and neighbours. Everyone in Nicaragua needs to make a bit of extra cash on the side to keep afloat financially...