Grocery Shopping at the Mall in Algiers

The day after we arrived our sponsor said she would arrange to take us to the local mall to go grocery shopping. My first reaction was shock because I didn’t imagine there being a mall in this city and second, I don’t know the last time I went to a mall and left with groceries. I thought to myself, “this should be interesting.” Unfortunately Douglas was not able to go with us. According to the Marine Corps Order, new Detachment Commanders are restricted to the compound upon the first 2 weeks of arriving to post. So I had to venture off to the mall without him this time. After I shared my experience with him when I got home I think he was a bit relieved that he couldn’t go.

After my sponsor, Giovanna, got off work Sunday evening she said we would meet and go to the mall. I must say that Giovanna is an excellent sponsor. There is no one we would rather have to assist us during this time. Before we arrived to our new home, Giovanna got keys to our place to make sure that is was appropriately clean. She also used her own money to purchase a few household products and groceries for us to start out with. And she and her husband even had us over for dinner our first night here. She has been an angel! Giovanna, like all the other Americans working at the embassy, is associated with the Department of State (DoS). The Marines and one Navy employee are the only Department of Defense (DoD) workers. DoS employees are sent out from Washington D.C., mainly through the Foreign Services Institute, and they are assigned to various Embassies around the world. They usually rotate every 2 years, but often have the option to extend for an additional year if they perform well in their job or just love the country. Needless to say that no one opts to extend their stay in Algeria. As I spoke with a few employees, I asked them how long they had been here. Some of the responses varied from a few months to a couple years. But most people replied by telling me how many days they have left here opposed to how long they had already been here. Hmm….should I be concerned?  I’ll talk more about that topic in a separate post.

When Sunday evening got here I was very excited to experience my first trip to the mall, which is located at the Bab Ezzouar complex. Whenever we want to go anywhere off compound, we must request a driver. It’s very similar to calling ahead for a taxi or cab in the states. Except, in the U.S. you usually call a taxi out of convenience, whereas here there is no other option if you want to get around the city. We were not permitted to bring a vehicle out here, nor are we permitted to drive out here; not that we would want to either!

The car was scheduled for 5:00 p.m. We didn’t leave until a few minutes after 5:30 because the van had to wait on other passengers. I started to grow a little impatient because I’m accustomed to getting in my vehicle and immediately taking off to my destination. And if I’m picking someone up to take them somewhere they usually have the courtesy to be on time. This was my first lesson, patience is key! When the other 3 passengers finally arrived at what felt like an hour later we proceeded to the mall. I was told it usually takes 20 to 30 minutes to get there from the embassy; however, the traffic was horrible. It took us nearly an hour to get there. 

When we arrived we proceeded in and began walking around the first floor. Surprisingly there were several stores in this mall. It's actually pretty nice, but it was terribly over crowded that night; therefore, we didn't go into any stores. Instead Giovanna walked me around to get an idea of the selection. I saw a few stores that looked familiar to that of the states. One place looked like a Nike store, another was United Colors of Benetton and another looked like a duplicate of Forever 21. There were also a few jewelry shops. For the most part it looked like you could do somewhat decent shopping there. However, Giovanna explained to me that much of the merchandise is pretty expensive and you also don’t know if you’re actually getting what you pay for. I didn’t understand what she meant by that so I asked her to elaborate. She said that just because something says Nike on it and has a check, doesn’t mean that it’s authentic Nike apparel. Apparently, a lot of items are often knock-offs. I guess that is not much different from the states, or at least New York, because there were a lot of places in New York City that sold knock-offs and did well. However, when you go shopping at a mall you don’t expect to find fake name brands, especially for the price you pay. Well, duly noted on the tip. Since I have no idea how to tell a fake Nike shirt from a real one I guess I’ll avoid all products all together; moving on.

We took the escalator up the second floor where there were more stores and a food court. This must have been the largest food court I had ever seen. There were so many restaurants there with a huge variety of foods. It looked like a normal mall food court, except no Cinnamon Bun stand. I can no longer eat cinnamon buns, but boy were they delicious! Since it was getting late we decided to purchase some food to go for ourselves and our husbands. I had originally intended to go home and cook the food I had purchased that evening but it was already 6:45 p.m. and we hadn’t even made it to the actual grocery store yet. There were so many food choices, but in the end we went with what looked familiar; a burger and fry vendor. I ordered Douglas what looked to be a sandwich made with steak and cheese on a long piece of flat bread and a side of fries. Since I have a gluten allergy, I opted for 2 rotisserie chicken legs and a side of baked potatoes from a different vendor. The potatoes looked more like the breakfast potatoes you would find at an average U.S. hotel breakfast buffet. It definitely didn’t look like something I would normally have with my dinner meal, but there weren’t many other choices that were gluten-free and a girl has to eat! In the states, I could try to talk with the people to find out whether or not their food contained gluten, but here I could barley say the right words to explain what dish I wanted or to determine how much money it cost. So I happily walked away with my chicken that looked delicious and hard potatoes that looked way over cooked.

Finally, a little after 7:15 p.m., we headed back downstairs to go to the popular grocery store called Uno. Let me tell you that Uno was situated in the mall like an Old Navy typically is tucked away in a mall in the states. I must have walked right by it when we entered. Uno was extremely packed. It is comparable to your local Wal-mart that no one ever wants to go to but always needs to go to. One difference though is that we had to pay for a shopping cart. It was probably 25 or 50 cents but I’m still getting familiar with the Algerian currency, which is in dinar (DZD).

Before we entered the store we had to check our bags of food that we purchased in the food court, into a cubby box to the side of the store. We weren’t allowed to bring other bags into Uno’s. I can’t imagine why that was necessary but we obliged. Afterwards, we began to make our way through the mass of people. Giovanna first led us to the food section. I had come with a grocery list as I usually do when I shop. However, my grocery list was clearly that of an American because this store did not carry most of the items I had listed. Giovanna explained that one store will typically only have ½ or ¾ of what you need. Most people go to 3 different places to get their groceries. What ever happened to a one-stop-shop? I continued to try and purchase all that I could from my list. I think the first thing I went to buy was milk. Why did I start with milk? They do not carry cold milk. It is all shelf milk in small containers. And there are at least 10 different brands and types of milk to choose from. At that moment I remember talking with the previous spouse who I replaced and she mentioned that most of the milk here is horrible, but she had finally found a brand that was comparable to that in the states. However, for the life of me I couldn’t remember its name. I asked Giovanna but she said she buys any milk available because her husband isn’t that picky. Too bad I am and I would hate to walk away with the worst milk Algiers has to offer. After 5 minutes I gave up and almost decided to select my milk by saying, “eeny, meeny miny moe.” Instead I just grabbed two containers that had the prettiest labels. Leave it up to me to allow that to be my deciding factor!

We moved on to some items I was familiar with; frozen vegetables and seafood. Giovanna said Uno doesn’t typically carry that type of frozen selection so I better grab it while it’s there. Apparently that is another rule of thumb here. If you see a food or item you like, buy all of it because 9 times out of 10 that item will not be there when you come back. And it could take weeks or months before its restocked. Duly noted. I proceeded to purchase what had to be 8 bags of frozen vegetables that consisted of peas, carrots, and my favorite, broccoli. I love fresh veggies, but the selection in that store left much to be desired so I stocked up on frozen instead. I also bought some fish and shrimp since we needed some meat in the house. Unfortunately, the store was all out of turkey and beef. And of course since this is a Muslim country they do not carry any pork. I grabbed a few other items and then forgot I needed to get butter. Giovanna said it was back near the milk. So instead of her trucking back to that aisle with me, I said I would go on my own. Poor decision on my part! I entered the aisle for butter to only find myself in awe by the large assortment of butter Uno carried. I had never seen this much butter in a store. You would have thought I was in the butter warehouse. There were so many kinds of butter, but I didn’t know one from the next because all the labels were in French and/or Arabic. What the heck? I tried to look for something similar to that in the states. I tried to look for something that had sticks. Nope, they don’t carry butter by the stick; only butter by the block or I should say brick because that is what it looked like. I couldn’t stare at all this butter any longer. Unfortunately, the same logic I used to choose my milk didn’t work for the butter because all the labels looked similar. So instead I chose the one that started with the letter, B, and assumed that would be the best butter. Don’t judge me! When I made it back to Giovanna I told her about my difficult decision and she said to me, “Oh, you got the same butter I use. That is good.” Really! Why the heck didn’t I just ask her what type of butter was best to buy in the first place?

Before we left this mad house of a store, I remembered I had to get some detergent. By now I hadn’t even bothered with checking my list because I was so overwhelmed by all the people surrounding me. I felt like I was on the game show Supermarket Sweep, trying to load my cart with as much as I could in a short amount of time. The last thing I needed to buy was some detergent. I thought to myself, this should be easy. I’ll just ask Giovanna what detergent she uses and I’ll buy that one. Of course, I ask Giovanna which detergent she uses and she replies, “Gain. It’s the best, and I only use detergent from the states because the detergent here is horrible and it can ruin your clothes.” Okay, not what I expected to hear. But I thought since I’m not working I will not go through many clothes, so I can just wait and order some of my favorite dry detergent from Amazon.com. However, my husband on the other hand is working 10-12 hour days and exercising too so his clothes need to be washed immediately. Now I must try to decide which detergent is best because we can’t afford for this stuff to ruin our good clothes. Oh my goodness! After what felt like 10 minutes in the detergent aisle I just chose the one that Givoanna heard should be okay and figured I’ll hope for the best!

A good hour later and we were finally ready to go the register. Of course, we get to the front and there are about 15 registers with at least 10 people at each one. You would have thought this was Black Friday in the states and all groceries were half off! We managed to push our cart through several people and get in a line. While standing in the long and slow line I realized that I may not have brought enough money to pay for everything in my cart.  As I was shopping, all the prices were in Algerian currency, dinar, and I didn’t even bother to keep a tally. Kindly, Giovanna offered to give me any additional money I needed. She is so sweet. We got up to the register and I crossed my fingers that I did have enough so I wouldn’t have to borrow any money. As he rang my items we had to bag our own groceries. I don’t know the last time I did that in the states, unless I was in a self-check-out aisle. My bill had come up to 8651.00 Dinar and thankfully I had almost just enough. Whew!

It was now a little past 8 p.m. and we headed back outside to find our driver. He was waiting there so patiently. I guarantee had that been a New York taxi driver he would have been gone a long time ago with the next paying customer. Thank goodness for the embassy drivers. The driver dropped Giovanna off at her residence and then took me to my place. By the time I made it home it was almost 9 p.m. I had been gone 4 hours and only had half the items on my grocery list to show for it and Douglas wasn’t even home from work yet for me to vent to. I unpacked my bags and patiently waited for Douglas to come home so he could eat his sandwich and fries and I could eat my rotisserie chicken and hard over cooked potatoes. I don’t drink, but after that night I sure could have used a bottle of wine!