Mail order

There was a time in Africa when catalogue shopping was all the rage. When foreign exchange problems left the shelves of local shops bare, it was still possible to buy an international postal order and send off for what seemed like highly glamorous goods. The experience was heightened by the months of waiting for the parcel to arrive.

The internet and structural adjustment have changed all that. Boringly, you can get most things in most places. Gone is the thrill of having foreign exchange and landing in a place like London to have new shopping experiences.

Kinshasa is a bit different. Supplies are irregular, shops are small and badly run. But that is getting us off the subject.

I am now engaged on mail order, Kinshasa style.

It works like this.

Stage 1: decide what you want to buy. If you have an example, so much the better, if not just describe it.

Stage 2: Driver goes down town. You can join him if you like, but this doesn’t change the fundamental nature of the process. His skill is primarily to know roughly where you might be able to get a certain product.

Stage 3: Driver comes into shopping street and is immediately surrounded by shouting husslers who either have things for sale which they carry in their arms or on their head, or offer to get things.

Stage 4: Driver displays his local knowledge by shouting for someone by name. Said person is duly fetched from somewhere by the husslers, and comes to the driver’s window

Stage 5: Driver tells the person what he wants to buy. Person goes off to various shops and tried to find one. The husslers listen, and will also run off to try and get the same object.

Stage 6: The objects are all produced for the driver to inspect. Prices are mentioned. If I am in the car I will be consulted at this stage.

Stage 7: As likely as not, the objects will not be right so the search starts again, but with more accurate parameters.

Stage 8: Eventually one object/one hussler is selected and money changes hands. The said hussler then goes to the shop that was selling it and get a receipt.

I’m not sure why the driver doesn’t get out of the car and look for himself. Could it be concerns for the security of the car? Very unlikely – cars don’t get stolen much here. Could it be his personal security? Even more unlikely – the guys are pushy, but they don’t hurt you.

Maybe he sees it as being the quickest form of comparison shopping that there is. After all having five people looking for you must be quicker than going from shop to shop. But then time is hardly a factor that he has to worry about. Most of his day is spent sitting around waiting for something to happen.

I think it is something quite different. I think he likes the sense of power. While to me he is disconcertingly humble and self effacing, he is, in fact, by virtue of being a driver, virtually in the middle class. He observes how the big men behave: they are surrounded by minions waiting on the tiniest gesture from him, trying to anticipate his every wish, but living in fear of ever doing something wrong. That’s his role model. Now he’s sitting in a posh car he’s got the chance and the money (even if it isn’t his, and everyone knows it isn’t) to boss people around. And by being in such a car he is, in a sense, an extension of the big man.

And for the husslers? They don’t mind a bit. In fact they like this system because the shops give them a commission. Not much, I’m sure of that, but something. Even the driver probably picks up a commission from time to time.

So everyone’s happy. Remote shopping works.