Shopping

Today I went to the big grocery store, a 12 minute walk. For years the store was Monoprix, a French owned store with many French as well as local products. Recently, however, a Kuwaiti firm bought the chain, at least all the stores in Lebanon. Gone was the Monoprix name, replaced by something unmemorable like ITS or something. Even the logo is icky.

At first we noticed the inexpensive French wines dwindling, and the odd product we had come to appreciate, there no more. Today I noticed a definite increase in American products, at a price: a pint of Ben & Jerry's for $10, and frozen Boca Burgers for $6.50. But it's still so Lebanese: I wanted to buy a bag of organic purple beans, but at checkout I was told that "there was no code" and I couldn't buy them. This after the person bagging ran to the produce counter to confer with staff there. "You can buy it tomorrow," the clerk told me. I had to pay for the other things, leave my bags with a worker at the door, go back in and select a different type of beans.

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Last week I led two small groups of new ACS teachers on a shopping tour of Hamra (our neighborhood). It was fun! It had meant so much to me last year when Carol Easton led me around, I wanted to offer newcomers something similar. This time we hit the Beirut Health Food Store, an unlikely place to buy pillows (a uniform store), a Palestinian craft store, a nut store with a very sweet owner (who had just finished roasting before the power went out--and the almonds were still warm-mmmm!), a deli with fresh baked and frozen baguettes, the post office (hidden on the second floor of a building), a liquor store, the "in" coffee shop (hard to find), a tailor, a famous pastry shop, a grocery store that stays open later than others, the "500 store" = dollar store, and a huge clothing store called El Dorado that goes on and on down various staircases in a bewildering array of garish display areas and deadends. And of course I showed them Mr. Haj, our lovely vegetable seller, who may not have the variety that indoor stores have, but who has the best prices, a ready smile, and will never cheat you. His canteloupes ($1 max) are always dynamite--we eat an entire one for dessert almost every day...