Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Shopping Trip

I had a lot of fun tagging along with Thelma yesterday on her weekly shopping run in Managua. I’m not sure what was the best part, eating the yummy pupusas at the Salvadoran restaurant (60 cents a piece and they weren’t little), smelling all the essential oils at Naturaleza or watching the family that mixes up cleaning products in their front yard go about their work with an engaging toddler underfoot. A half wall of cement separates the workshop from the street and acts as a shop window. The mom and her daughter along with several sons are tending 8 fifty gallon drums and a constantly running hose. Each drum has a different brightly colored cleaning product. The more caustic chemicals are in back. Everything for the home and a lot of stuff for the car. You can get pool chemicals. Or bleach. Customers come up with empty soda bottles and have them filled with different things. Using cut off bleach bottles for funnels, they fill your container and put a little piece of plastic under the cap to protect your car. The older son put the baby down and walked around to the other side of the car to load the bottles. Thelma got 25 dollars worth of cleaning products in 4 10 gallon containers and 4 bleach bottles and 2 two liter soda. They filled up a Sprite bottle with lime scented floor cleaner and gave it to her as a freebie. I limited myself to a gallon of lavender scented floor cleaner. Could it replace Fabuloso in my heart? I love the smell of lavender Fabuloso because it reminds me of vacation in exotic places where someone else is cleaning my house. Lirio laundry soap has the same effect.

Before picking Zoey up at school we had to go to PriceSmart (Costco) because I needed some things. It is just as horrible here as in the States. Except it has the added convenience of accepting credit cards. But only American Express. Which I didn’t have, so Thelma bought my groceries and printer ink.

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