AFRICAN STORES

After the "ordeal" of a luxury safari, tourists like to recover with the help of some retail therapy, and charge off to various souvenir stores looking for a unique handicraft (learn about handicrafts). But for Africans the shopping experience is very different from that to which residents of developed countries are accustomed. Most Africans rarely shop at all. It's not part of their culture, especially in rural areas where most people are subsistence farmers. Most towns have a market place, where produce and herd animals (or parts thereof) are sold. A typical shop is a "general" store which sells household goods, imported cloth for a chitenge, salt, fishing gear and most anything else you can imagine.