Grocery shopping for a future me

and crying over condiments

Hello,

Last night, 8.30pm

The kids are in bed and I am indulging in a rare treat: a spot of online grocery shopping. Living in Harare, where cash is king, currency devaluations are commonplace, and the best value shopping happens in bustling markets, shopping for provisions online is basically unheard of. But the thing is, I am not shopping for me, here, now. I am shopping for a version of me in the future. To be specific, I am shopping for me in three months time.

The website I am using is for a company that specialises in international duty free delivery for diplomats overseas. I puzzle over which cleaning products to put in my basket: Method or Ecover? Is it better value to get the 250ml or 300ml Heinz tomato ketchup multipacks? Are there any lunchbox snacks I can get for the kids - maybe some mini boxes of raisins? I hover over clicking ‘add’ to the basket - and suddenly burst into tears.

The delivery country for our order is not Zimbabwe, where I am right now. It’s Rwanda. The next place we will call ‘home’.

---

For anyone who has been following the saga of international development spending, you’ll be aware of the recent drastic cuts to overseas aid spending by many of the wealthiest countries in the world, including the UK. Trump’s malicious slashing of aid (and Starmer’s cowardly policy aping) has devastating consequences and disproportionately affects programmes focusing on women and girls.

It also affects the lives of people working in those sectors, including us, with thousands of job losses and huge amounts of uncertainty. And we are definitely among the luckier ones. Avi secured a job in Rwanda last year - in December we went to the capital, Kigali, look around, visit schools, and view housing. Just as we were getting out heads around it, the role was axed due to the budget cuts. It blindsided us: we had lost a version of the future before we had even started it. Avi went through the whole process again, interviewing for different roles in Dhaka, Kigali, and Addis Ababa - before finally being offered another job in Kigali - again! The superstitious side of me is relieved, in a way - I can choose to see this as meaning that this outcome has been doubly-written for us: Rwanda must be the place. And so tentatively, I am now letting myself believe that this is a reality.

It’s a strange thing, to be planning for a move that you are grateful for, but also wish didn’t have to happen. I love it here in Zimbabwe - it has been so kind to us. I wish we could stay… and let our children enjoy this beautiful sunshine and barefoot living for a little longer. But our four years are up and we have to move on. At this stage, I try not to think of it as getting ready to leave Harare - I can’t bear it just yet - but instead, as preparing to arrive in Kigali in August.

---

I am a list-maker by nature; a planner. You can’t do three back-to-back overseas postings, publish two books, give birth to two babies on two different continents, with a dose of a global pandemic thrown into the mix, in just seven years(!) and not be highly organised. I write lists of what to pack in our luggage and what can be shipped to arrive later - the heavy cargo takes about three months so we need to plan carefully.

I’ve done this so many times now, I know the deal. I calculate the ages of the kids and estimate shoe sizes and look up the weather in Kigali and plan what clothing we’ll need to take. As well as the obvious things - toiletries, medicines, clothes, toys, books, electronics, there are the underrated ‘items-that-will-aid-our-quality-of-life’ that I make sure to list: pop-up mosquito nets and plug-ins, the kids’ favourite plates, forks and water bottles, their folding tiled play mat. I debate about whether to take the rice cooker on the flight with us - the decision takes all of 5 seconds: what makes me happy will make the family happy - it wins its rightful spot on the list, along with my prized spice jar collection. Then there are the sentimental and spiritual things: keepsake boxes for our wedding, and for each of the children (that contain their baby scans and first foot and handprints, and locks of hair, and letters I have written to them on their birthdays every year); and prayer mats, and holy zamzam water, and shabbat candlesticks for lighting on Friday night.

All our birthdays fall in the stretch between September and November - most of our belongings won’t have arrived by then - so I make a note to pack birthday banners and balloons, and gifts and wrapping paper. Little Lad will turn 5 just a couple of weeks after we arrive. Maybe I should also pack a cake tin?

---

All this thinking ahead is an act of love for my future self. I can’t control everything, but I can be prepared. I think about me in three months time and wish I could give her a hug. I know how she will be feeling: overwhelmed, guilty, excited, nervous. Probably exhausted after a whole month of book promotion back in the UK before making the move. She will be trying to keep everything as normal as possible for the children while also trying to help them embrace this new adventure. She’ll be unpacking suitcases and saying a silent thanks to her past self for thinking ahead - and kicking herself for no doubt forgetting something essential.

The online grocery shopping comes at the suggestion of a Rwanda-based colleague. She emails us suggesting that we place an order before the end of May to make sure the duty-free goods make it through in time for our arrival. Suddenly I am pulled into the immediacy of preparation - this is beyond list making, this is actual doing.

I am fully aware of how lucky we are that we have access to these routes of shopping and shipping (here’s the link, BTW, go on, have a nosey… ). It’s one of the many weird things about ‘expat’ living: this stocking up of store-cupboard essentials: back in the UK I wouldn’t have had the space, for one thing. But seven years of living overseas has made me adept at shopping and storing in this way, aided by visiting family who are generous with their suitcase space. Buying in tinned and dried goods won’t replace shopping locally: we will be sourcing our fruit and vegetables, and all sorts of other things, in Kigali. But it’s a good chance to bulk buy some items that are harder to get hold of and are much more expensive on the local market.

my ‘pantry’ - aka - the cupboard under the stairs

These international shipments are used by most diplomats as a duty-free off license, but in our case, the shopping basket is stuffed with 6-packs of Patak’s mixed pickle and low-sodium soy sauce. It’s so surreal…trying to imagine what I will cook for my family, in a kitchen I’ve never set foot in, trying to make familiar dishes in an unfamiliar context.

This won’t just be about nourishment: I know from experience that what we eat will be one of the most important and immediate ways of making us all feel settled, secure, at ease…at home. And so, I study my shopping basket again carefully. I add a 6-pack of Patak’s aubergine pickle for good measure.

And then I click ‘checkout’.

Shahnaz x