Adventures in the Zambian Marketplace

In an attempt to get out of our very preserved Western-lifestyle-bubble within Zambia, this weekend we decided to venture out more into the Lusaka community… and what better way to experience Zambian culture and lifestyle than through the marketplace?

One of the many side streets of the Kamwala shopping district.  This particular street was lined with shops selling fabrics for clothing, upholstery and drapes.

On Saturday morning, we met our friend Rhodha in Kamwala, the main shopping district in Lusaka, to shop for African fabrics.  Here, many women wear beautifully printed fabrics as skirts, or chitenges, on a daily basis, so each of us was hoping to purchase some such fabric to bring home.  When Rhodha described the shop to us, I pictured this cute little specialty shop located on some street, just like all the clothing shops at home… but that was definitely not the case with this shop!  Kamwala is a huge, sprawling market district with potholed-red-dirt roads (some of them were more like craters than holes) and a sea of people, cars and merchandise.  According to our driver, Immanuel, the shopping district is divided into many different parts, each with a particular focus (fabrics, groceries or housewares), and even has country-specific sections – such as Indian, Chinese and Tanzanian shops.  Immanuel is quite the character though, so I’m not sure if he was just making it up or not!  We wandered through numerous fabric shops looking at all of the different chitenge fabrics – there was such a huge variety that it was difficult to choose!  In each shop, the selection was slightly different, but ranged from religious to geometric to floral to animal prints and even to soccer teams and Bob Marley or Pokemon-themed.  Each of us (or at least each of the girls) left Kamwala with at least a few meters of beautiful chitenge fabric… now I just need to figure out what to make with mine!  It was so exciting to be able to see how Zambians live in Lusaka on a regular basis – to see the hair shops, the dried fish stands and the displays of Zambian Chipolopolo (the national soccer team) merchandise… I absolutely loved it!

My favourite chitenge shop that we visited!  All four walls were lined with coded pieces of cloth that were grouped according to price.  In order to find the ones that we liked, we stood in the middle of the floor and turned in circles until we found the ones we were interested in while people pushed their way to the counter and shouted their orders from the back of the room... it was so much fun!