This was a big town on the map, a famous town.  So I had walked 11km here confident that I could get some luxuries:  powdered milk, biscuits, tea, fruit and most of all, chocolate.

But as I walked in, I knew there would be a problem:  black wooden shanties on a rutted road, very small shops with very dusty shelves, and not much on them.

It brought home to me again the people in this country are (mostly) poor and some are dirt poor.  What was available was basic.

I found biscuits of a sort, and chocolate, of a sort.  I bought a bottle of coke from a large (for here), accommodating woman.  She gave it to me unopened, and when I asked her to open it, she looked at me with a look that said any chance I had of sleeping with her, or anyone she knew, were shot* and just motioned to the blunt, worn, counter edge.  I acknowledged, banged my hand on the bottle top and the counter edge, and at the 2nd attempt, got it open.  Well, maybe somebody would sleep with me someday.

* (Mind you, at best, I would not have described her as being in my target market, nor, it seemed, I in hers.)

But like (almost) everywhere, there are happy playing children, who when I took out my camera, smelt it and came running.