Craft shopping in Mfuwe

When we got back to camp after our game drive, Henry had prepared us a hot lunch. We then had free time before our afternoon game drive began at 4pm. Most of the group went to the pool or the bar or both. Mona and I asked Laban to arrange a taxi for us so that we could go and explore the craft shops and market we had seen on the way in yesterday.

Our driver, Owen, arrived to pick us up at 12.30pm. His nickname is Mr Tall, for the obvious reason that he is the tallest man in the village! On the way out of Croc Valley, we saw elephants and, unusually, a hippo out of the water. It isn’t far to the village from the campsite, and we felt like frauds for taking a taxi, but we were warned that it was too dangerous to walk. In fact, Owen stopped to warn a guy that we saw walking along the road by himself that there were elephants in the vicinity.

Once we reached the village, Owen took us to a place to change a few dollars to Zambian Kwacha. The lady in the first place he took us to offered us a shockingly low exchange rate, so we got back in the taxi, drove across the road, and did some kind of dodgy deal with a guy through the car window! 😂

Owen then dropped us off and arranged to pick us up from the textile centre at the other end of the village at 2pm. We walked up the road through the market, chatting to people as we went. We saw lots of waxed cotton fabrics for sale, and there were ladies with sewing machines in the next road back waiting to make the material up into garments. There were colourful displays of fresh fruit and vegetables and bottles of unidentifiable liquids. Many of the ladies in the market spoke very little English. We loved spending time looking at everything. This felt like we were finally getting the authentic experience we had been wanting.

After the market, we visited the craft shops, most of which were run by women’s co-operatives, and a couple of which had nice-looking cafés. There were some interesting projects being supported, including one to supply reusable sanitary towels to girls so that they didn’t have to miss any school. There were also some lovely handcrafted items on sale. Mona bought some trousers and a cotton zipped bag. I bought a wallet. We both bought jewellery. I resisted the temptation to buy a beautiful handwoven scarf!Read more