Ghanaian Walmart

As I previously blogged, our trip to the office each day is eventful to say the least but I'd have to say it's one of the best times of the day when you can see a city in action, its sounds, smells and sights.  After a few days we started to play games in the truck, looking for different vendors and their wares.  There's quite a variety of items for sale each and every day.  This is truly one of the toughest jobs there must be.  It is very demanding work.  You need to be not only in great physical shape to walk in the heat all day with heavy baskets on your head but you have to be quick on your feet to run when you get an order and you have to have quick eyes to spot someone who is hailing an order.  The gestures of Ghanaian people tend to be subtle and I often miss them as I watch the vendors.  We find it entertaining to watch the action on the street as people in their cars buy loaves of bread, bottled water, fresh fruit etc.  The speed with which the goods and cash are exchanged is amazing and if traffic starts to move the vendor is running along side the car to complete the exchange.

There are no drive-thrus here in Ghana but one could easily hop in their car, pick a busy street and collect your lunch items before returning back to the office.  Our driver laughs at our suggestions at how to make the best use of one's driving time while doing your daily/weekly shopping...now that's an IBMer for you.  Funny how it's illegal to talk on the phone while driving but grocery shopping from your car window is OK.

We started to notice that many items for sale were outside the food and convenience items and as we identified more interesting products we started to keep a list of all the items we saw on our trips.  Over the course of two days our list was over 90 unique items....thus the name "Ghanaian Walmart".  You can pretty much get anything you might really need from these vendors without ever leaving your car.  Far more efficient perhaps for someone driving to and from work than stopping at a Walmart or Loblaws (which don't exist by the way).  A list of items is below (lengthy but worth a peruse to see what's there).
 

Newspapers

Phone cards

Sugar cane (cut up in pieces and eaten as candy)

Yams

Toiletries (make-up, deodorant, soap, shampoo, razors, combs, tooth paste, tooth brushes, etc)

Pillows

Pens

Brooms

Air freshener

Skipping ropes

DVD's

Sunglasses (see picture @ right with large wooden flat of sunglasses)

Chocolate bars (and they don’t melt!)

Onions

Mops

Pails

Scrabble

Pringles chips

Plantain chips

Kleenex

TV aerials

Toilette paper

Fruit of all kinds

Tiger nuts (grow in the ground but not with a hard shell…you clean them in salt water before you eat them)

Ceramic bowls

Cake bread (very sweet)

Donuts

Mirror

Plungers

Jellyfish ball (a toy)

Ground nuts

Orange juice

Towels (made from 2^nd hand clothing that is cut into wash cloth sizes and used for car dusters)

Bread

Socks

Ties

handkerchiefs

Grapes

Cookies

Clocks (digital and analogue)

Iron with ironing board

Atlas

Mathematics (called “First Aid in Mathematics”)

Bibles

Fabrics for making clothes

Massage apparatus

Plantain Chips

Watches, necklaces and jewelry

Framed artwork (24 x 36 and larger)

Posters (maps of Ghana, alphabet charts)

Sachet Water (small clear packs of water)

Shoes

Belts

Car Phone charger

Phone cases

Yogurt drinks (not sure how they keep them cold)

Blackberries (Yoryi - you peel off the outside to eat the brown fruit inside)

Small tables

Weight machine (an entire free weight set including the bench...while the guy selling this wasn't walking with it, he was demonstrating the product)

Globe (world atlas)

Tummy trimmer (exercise apparatus)

Clothing catalog/Style magazine

Fabric for dress making

Limes

Mango

Oranges

Insulated lunch bag

Canes

Power converters

Power bards

Head phones

Desk lamps

Cuff links

Broaches

Popcorn

Scouring pad for cleaning

Reflective car stickers

Super Glue

Gaming system

Hand held vacuum

Samosas

Oven Cleaner

Camping lantern

Flash light

Camouflage sheets

Keyboard

Hats including cowboy hats (have yet to see a cowboy, nor has our driver ever seen one...see picture @ right)

Dishes

Lanyards

Swimming caps

White board

Crosses (with and without chains)

Wind shield wipers (one size fits all I think ;-))

Wardrobe bags

Dog collars

Magazines

Lip balm

Hair brushes

And…the best one of all.....Puppies!  Can you believe it!

Picture of Puppies below in man's hands

 
On a serious note, however, those who sell their wares on the street are "officially" unemployed (both educated and uneducated) and this is a way for them to make ends meet in a very difficult economy.  There is no minimum wage for this job category and you are at the mercy of not only the heat and sun but what ever products might be available that day at the distribution center.  I see young mom's with babies strapped to their backs and large baskets on their heads walking up and down the street.  I'm sure ,most days it's a struggle to take home enough income to get by on.