Kinshasa FAQs: Grocery Shopping

There is an art to grocery shopping in Kinshasa. It is learned through trial and tribulation and accidentally paying $20 for a melon. Most grocery runs are actually marathons because it is nearly impossible to go to one store and get everything you need - on a budget. Our families dispatch the most willing shoppers, the men of the house. Mostly because Jill and I can go longer than them without eating. On a good day, a trip takes 3-4 hours and only leaves us several hundred dollars poorer.

Groceries in Kinshasa are expensive. There's no way around it. We've learned to deny ourselves many items, and celebrate in the adrenaline rush of a $5 box of expired cereal. But be careful with produce and check your receipts. Everyone has fallen victim to this scenario at one point or another:

Mandarins: $23

Mandarins: $3 (neighboring store)

Here's a rundown of our favorite stores. Of course there are many, many others. A comprehensive shopping trip will take me (read: Adam) to at least 4 of the following places:


City Market: Avenue de L'Equateur

Pros: City Market is a possible one-stop grocery store. Most everything you need can be found here. Pets, groceries, sporting equipment, school supplies, and hookahs galore! Tip: Head for the promotion section first. Our favorite finds there have been Craisins, pickled peppers and Fruit Roll-ups. So good.

Cons: Most items are imported and thus prohibitively expensive. Sometimes crazy expensive. Therefore, City Market is more of a one-stop shop for the single guy UN worker. Not so much for the teacher's family.



A word about pricing in grocery stores. Most of the time they're found on charts scattered throughout the store. Each item has a number and letter code. Then you have the task of matching the code with the price on the nearest chart. Like this...

Example: This Turbo-Jet Steam Iron is E08. According to the chart, E08 costs 19,521 FC. Simple as that. There are many theories as to why this ridiculous system exists. Feel free to weigh in below.


Back to the rundown.

GG Mart: Avenue Tombalbaye

Pros: This Indian-owned grocery store is relatively new on the scene, but if I had to pick a one-stop place, GG's my choice. Their prices are good on just about everything and they have a large selection. Tip: If you have a TASOK ID, you get a discount!

Cons: There are several enticing promotion tables, but steer clear. We've ended up with too many bug-filled boxes of cereal and pasta. And moldy veggie burgers.

Fooled again by that promotion table!

Hasson et Frère: Avenue des Aviateurs, across from the U.S. Embassy

Pros: Another one-stop option. Hasson et Frère's website (!) claims they're the largest department store in Central Africa. I might add quotes around "largest" and "department store." But they do have lots of things at Kinshasa-reasonable prices. Including cheap liquor and mini shopping carts for the kids. What more can you ask for? Plus the only grocery store bathroom (it's upstairs...for 200FC).

Cons: You have to pay for produce, meat and cheese at a separate cash register at the back of the store. They won't tell you this until you're at the front checking out the rest of your items. Closed on Saturdays. Constantly rearranging. What's the deal, Hasson?


Kin Marche: Avenue Mpolo Maurice, across from Kin Mart

Pros: I quite like Kin Marche. It's dumpy, the AC is rarely working, and it's located across from the higher priced Kin Mart, so I feel like they've gotta have good deals. We get juice, canned foods and flat bread here. As long as we've lived in Kin, an extremely attractive security guard with a million dollar smile has worked outside. Hypnotized by this smile, Adam buys him a Snickers every time we're there. Over six years, that's a lot of Snickers. Totally worth that smile.

Cons: Not really your best option for one-stop shopping. Parking can be impossible. But this is when the Snickers relationship comes in handy.


Extra Plus: Avenue de L'Equateur, on the opposite side of 30 Juin from City Market

Pros: Extra Plus is a good size, never crowded grocery store. It's Portuguese-owned, so there's quite a selection of nice European sundries. Oh and their rolls are incredible. This is our stop for meat, cheese, bread, and milk. We spend a good fraction of our salary on our girls' milk drinking habits, so we get our milk here. By the flat. They also have a nice local and imported produce section. Tip: They'll give you a discount (remise) on your total of $50 or more. But you might have to remind them. Oh! And my favorite feature of Extra Plus - they blast Celine Dion.

Cons: Expensive cleaning supplies, paper products, canned foods and pretty much everything else I didn't mention above. Sometimes they give you your change in candy. Good for the kids, weird for the adults. Also, they blast Celine Dion.


SIECO (aka the Portuguese Store):  Avenue Lokonga

Pros: Small, but Kinshasa-great prices on most everything. When we first moved to Kin, SIECO was the only store with prices posted in USD and they didn't use the chart system. Alas, I think they got in trouble with the government for making the shopping experience too easy, so they had to switch to scavenger hunt style pricing.

Cons: Located at the end of 30 Juin in a hard-to-find corner of the city. (Take the right at the end of the boulevard and then the first left. Go until the road ends. Voila, SIECO.) Closed on Sundays.


Iyafu (aka the Indian Store): Avenue de Marche, around the corner from the original N'ice Cream

Pros: Bulk dry goods. Raisins, dry coconut, spices and tons of dry legumes. Also, Gripe Water! Rumor has it a Dr. Pepper or two have been spotted there.

Cons: Small selection of other items.  


Shoprite: Avenue de l'OUA

Our initial excitement for Shoprite has waned.

Pros: When Shoprite first opened, we got a little excited (see photo from our original post about its opening above). It was the first chain grocery store and it was kind of a life-changer. But like many grocery stores in Kinshasa, it opened with excellent prices, then joined everyone else in the trend of high prices for some items, low prices for others.

Cons: Watch out for their "promotions." Take note of the price for these items as they ring up at the cash register; sometimes you don't get the posted promotion price. I'm told by my African auditor friends this is a common scheme in stores like this.

Tip: Put your promo items through the checkout first. Then you can catch any "errors" before they've totaled your bill.


All in all, grocery shopping in Kinshasa is getting cheaper and easier. I think. Or I might have lost perspective. Kinshasa shoppers, what do you think? And are there stores I've left out that you like? How about Regal, Peloustore, Kin Mart, Netty's, etc...

And if you're moving to Kinshasa and you like to hyper-analyze photos (like me), you might want to see what you can get at grocery stores. Here are a few images from various places.

Baby gear.

A variety of appliances. 

Cheese counter.

Goma Cheese. (About $11 a wheel these days.)

Meat.

Cereal, for that special occasion.

Baking equipment.

Laundry detergent.

 

Charts. And more charts.

Lastly, let us pause to reflect on $25 strawberries. They're going like hot cakes.

Previous Kinshasa FAQs: The Airport.

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Disney Princesses in the Heart of Darkness

There are three things in life we know for sure: Death, Taxes and the Disney Princesses. This is what they say, right?

It turns out that not even in the Heart of Darkness can one escape the reign of the Disney Princesses. A few weeks ago Charlotte came home from school with a goodie bag from the pré-maternelle birthday party of one of her little Congolese friends. In her not-so-little bag was lots of candy, strange imported snacks and Disney Princess memorabilia. She went absolutely nuts. Her little sister went absolutely nuts. And then they got into their very first hair-pulling, face-slapping sister fight over who got the princess purse. Adam and I looked at each other and knew there was no turning back.

You see, we live in the Congo. It is very easy to avoid the eye-level princess displays at Target and we don't have to pry our kids away from commercials on TV. But some things are just inevitable, I guess. I blame it mostly on the relatively new South African grocery store, Shoprite. Remember the one I spoke so lovingly of not too long ago? Okay, it's not just Shoprite's fault, Congo's been getting more and more China-made plastic stuff, so it was inevitable. But the princesses have officially found their way to the middle of Africa.

Thank you Shoprite for bringing Sparkle Girlz, My First Baby Princess and Barbie to Congo.

Around the time of Halloween this year, Shoprite displayed a combo tiara/wand princess set at the end of every aisle. Charlotte was totally fascinated. We were less than impressed and said no. So her godmother bought it for her, obviously. Off we went with our 2-year-old dressed as a princess for Halloween. But we made Ani dress as a pea just to temper it.

The princess and the pea.

"Thinking mommies" these days get worked up about a lot of things. Vaccines, breast-feeding, staying at home, going to work, the color pink, the word "pretty," and princesses. To name a few. I think I've decided to sit the princess one out. And if I can be so bold, loop Barbie right in with it.

When I was little I didn't have siblings or neighbors, I had Barbies. Like 50 of them. And the Barbie Ferrari and the Barbie RV, and I'll just stop there before I start missing my Barbies. I can remember being very small and hearing adults discussing the ridiculousness of Barbie. "She's terrible for little girls. They'll just grow up with unrealistic expectations about their bodies."

I thought this was crazy. I had never once imagined that I would grow up to look like a doll. Who wants creeky knees and permanently high-heeled positioned feet?! And then I realized they were talking about the boobs and the legs. Then I got sad thinking of my Barbies with shorter legs because they wouldn't be as easy to hold. They have those long legs and skinny waists for ergonomics, right?

Needless to say, I grew up in Barbieland and I think I ended up relatively secure about my imperfect body. Okay, except for immediately after giving birth. (And when I say "immediately after," I mean for the first year...or three. But I won't blame that on Barbie.)

At this age, Charlotte still consistently says her favorite color is black and when I ask her the names of those 3 princesses on her new purse she says, "Mama, Papa and Falafel" (our dog). So I think we still have a little bit of time to plan our princess strategy.

Kept unchecked, this is where we may end up. From The Pink Project" Jeeyoo and Her Pink Things, 2007. Check out this totally fascinating project here. JeongMee Yoon

I think what I'm most afraid of are the mommies and the judgment involved in the Disney Princess backlash. It's serious, folks. Read all about it: here and here and here.

The other night as I was rocking my one-year-old to sleep, she had a death grip on that damn princess purse (she won the fight). I literally could not pry it out of her hands without waking her up. Ordinarily, I let her keep the random things she clings to as she falls asleep. But this purse has a rope-like strap on it. I started imagining the headlines the next morning. Which is worse: Mom Allows Daughter to Sleep with Strangulation Hazard or Mom Allows Daughter to Have a Disney Princess Purse? It's a draw.

For now, our plan is to avoid purchasing the princess goods ourselves, but not get worked up when they inevitably make their way into our home. Shouldn't we be raising our daughters with the proper sense of self to play with the pretty pink princess stuff, but grow up feeling completely secure in spite of it all? Our daughters are strong and beautiful no matter what. And if they end up thinking those tiny waists and long legs are just for ergonomics, we've done our job.


**I wanted photo documentation of the infamous purse for this post. This morning Mamicho and I turned our house upside down looking for it. It turns out her daughters had (ahem) accidentally carried it back with them to their house. So the Disney Princess Purse and its hypnotic appeal win the prize for the only item ever stolen from our home. And they can keep it.

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Shoprite, Shop Right.

Big news in Kinshasa. We have a proper grocery store. There was little warning and then suddenly overnight a little piece of South Africa came to Congo. And it's right around the corner from us.

I have to back up a bit and say that way back when, when Adam and I first got to Congo, the idea of a grocery store was as foreign as a smooth road. There was a smattering of tiny shops masquerading as acceptable places to buy groceries. One would have to visit at least 3 stores (often 5) in order to find the basics. No one store stocked affordable vegetables, rice and milk under the same roof. Okay, so there is one store that could be considered "one stop shopping," but the sticker shock is enough to send anyone on a teacher's salary into a panic attack.

So for many years Adam and I would dedicate our entire Saturdays (at 70 cents a kilometer in the TASOK cars) driving all over the city to get a respectable stock of groceries. Conversation among friends often started with, "I saw raisins at Kin Marche!" And then off we would go to find the legend of raisins at a hole-in-the-wall shop in downtown Kinshasa. When we visited the States or South Africa, we'd return with a year's supply of toothpaste, detergent, soap, plastic wrap, trash bags, you name it. Our motto was: If we use it and don't eat it, we personally import it. This was our lives for several years.

Then starting this year, things began to change. Two small-ish stores opened closer to TASOK. And they sold yogurt! And bread! And rice cakes!! (Note the double exclamation points after rice cakes.) All at the same time. We started to get cautiously optimistic. Then BAM! One day a friend sends me a text message, "Have you seen the new Shoprite? I just bought a box of Cheerios for $5!" What the what?!

Shoprite is a South African grocery store chain. When we took up temporary residence there for Charlotte's birth, our Afrikaner landlord referred to it as the place, "I don't go." She preferred the more high class Pick-n-Pay. This is how we knew Shoprite was right for us. It's cheap and a little bit rundown. Perfect.

Shoprite: Kinshasa Edition truly is beautiful. As far as we know, there's never been anything like it here. There's a parking lot and shopping carts that #1 roll and #2 you can put your kid in them without worrying about infectious diseases. There are aisles and aisles of stocked groceries. Sure, there are still the $40 melons and $80 chocolate cakes, but for the most part most things aren't prohibitively expensive.

For example, Adam and I are currently excited about our freezer full of frozen peas. Small bags only cost about $2. This is unheard of. We are now the proud owners of a few boneless chicken breasts for only--I forget how much, but it was under $30, so that's good. Charlotte was mostly happy to see two men dressed up as La Vache qui Rit. Further evidence that this is a bigtime, professional grocery store.

Okay, I'm now realizing I've written perhaps Mama Congo's longest blog post about a grocery store. But I have to admit that as we were walking through I thought of some friends who left Congo about 4 years ago, and what they would think of the city now. And then I teared up a little when I saw an entire aisle of baby gear. Is change on the horizon in Kinshasa? We're cautiously optimistic. There's a rumor that the prices will rise after May 6. This makes no sense, really. But neither do $40 melons.

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