Excitement, Lilongwe style…

For those of you who have ever been to Malawi or to Lilongwe, you know that this is not a happening town. “Sleepy” seems to describe it best, but boring would do just as well. Not too many things to do – no museums, no movie theaters, no central park. So, when something, anything, happens in Lilongwe, you can bet that everyone and anyone will be there. This weekend’s excitement: the opening of a UK-based grocery store, SPAR!

Clearly, this is only remarkable for those of us who are desperate for an outing or those of us whose happiness can be measured by the availability of plain yogurt, blue cheese, and tomato paste: namely, us. However, this weekend’s amazing event was also attended by our long-term, repeat visitor, Veronica who also got a taste of this weekend’s good life. See her smile too!

Of course, the Grand Opening was supposed to be weeks ago, but shortages of foreign exchange and issues with Customs at the border delayed the shipments and helped the true grandeur of the occasion grow more palpable. So when last week’s Friday newspaper announced the Saturday opening, you could feel the electricity around town. Ok, that might be a slight stretch, but people were talking (and not just us, but other white people too!).

We arrived a few hours after the supposed opening at 8am to avoid the rush. At 10am, we were greeting by a small crowd and a sign noting the delay in opening until 11am due to faulty electronic tills. Sigh. So, we returned at 11am to find signs saying to return at noon, due to continued issues with the registers. Double sigh.

When we returned at noon (see how optimistic we are!!!), we were surrounded by similarly anxious and hyped up crowd members, including at least 20 familiar faces from around town. The DJ began to spin tunes, the guards unlocked the sliding doors, and people literally poured in. It was a miracle!

We ran through the store, Supermarket Sweep style, filling our basket with some over-priced goodies and bee-lined for the checkout while the rest of the crowd was still busy gawking at the fancy bakery products and actually-frozen meats. We were second in line, but it still took us 10 minutes to get out of there with only half our items: the remaining items were not yet in the electronic tills, so we just had to leave them behind. Sniff. Still, a fun morning was had by all, including the Colgate talking mascot outside the store.

And that, our friends, is a thrilling Saturday in Lilongwe. Who is visiting next???