The usual pretty full day – three two-hour workshops, all pretty successful, though I am feeling daunted by the need to finish casting by the end of the week. But at the end of the day, Arvind drove me to pick up Val, and then both of us to do some shopping. I needed to do some clothes shopping; not only did I need to replace my trousers, ripped at the knee and in any case covered in blood, but I have realised I do not have enough Polo shirts to wear. I had not really considered the fact that I would need to be reasonably smart for rehearsals; my somewhat casual approach of last year is not so appropriate here.
I suppose it was our own fault, really. Arvind offered to take us back to Lulu, the modern and huge hypermarket inside one of their lavish three-storey malls, but we persuaded him that it might be better to go to one of the other malls nearer to us, as much for variety as anything else – Lulu had been a bit overwhelming. So he took us to a budget clothes store, as we mentioned this need. It was pretty ropey, with clothes in piles labelled as one particular size, and which turned out to be a random assortment. But eventually, I was able to fulfil my requirements… pretty much.
Next stop was a supermarket, also set within a mall… but there the comparison with Lulu ended. It was shoddily stocked, and though we were able to get the majority of the things we wanted, it seemed to take forever (and it did not help that Val was feeling poorly.) But eventually, we completed our task and made our way to the checkout. Only the one open (though apparently staffed by about five people, who were serving about the same size crowd, but getting nowhere. We managed to face down a number of attempts to jump the queue ahead of us (except that there wasn’t a queue, just us, and the people being served.
And eventually it was our turn. Except that now we were the ones causing a blockage, since they could not accept our international credit cards. But luckily we had enough cash, and were eventually able to track down Arvind and get him to take us home.
As in the two most recent countries that I have visited to undertake projects – Ethiopia and Nepal – there was massive overemployment, with four people doing the job of one (when there wasn’t much of a job for one.) And even when there is a single employee manning a shop (as there had been in all of the luxury shops in Lulu mall) they had nothing to do but sit and wait. It seems to be a national condition, waiting for the working day to end, with nothing to do in the meantime, except sit and scroll through their phone. At least it is a job, and brings in an income (though not much of one, I suspect.)
Arvind, our driver, is in a similar position, waiting pretty much all day for us. We went to a different place for the workshops today, and I was able to see him parked outside. And at the end of the day, when I went to find him, he was, of course, watching a movie on his phone. I apologised for interrupting his movie, and he was quick to defend himself (unnecessarily) – “It helps the time to pass.”
