Yard Sales

I was not a fan of yard sales in the States. I wanted to be. I really did. But, whenever I tried, I came home tired from getting up at dawn and I either had a bunch of stuff I didn't need or nothing at all. I really admire people whose entire house is furnished with stuff they collected at yard sales. I think it's amazing. But, it's not me.

Enter January 23, 2012. The day I landed in Nigeria. That'll change your attitude folks. I went from being a "No, thank you, I'll wait until I can buy it new," kinda gal to a "Hey, what are you gonna do with that?" kinda gal.

It didn't happen overnight. It took about 3 full weeks of shopping at all of the "best stores" in town for me to realize how narrow and expensive my options were. Realizing that you're going to pay $10 for a box of ziplocs IF you can find them, will motivate you to treat them with kid gloves. My kids used to complain about washing the dishes, but they really hate washing the ziplocs!

I should have figured it out a couple of days in when a colleague brought me a few boxes of goodies that another colleague had left for us after a recent move to different country. In that box were about a 1/2 dozen used Food Lion egg cartons that had obviously been around the block a few times. I thought it was odd that this sweet lady would leave me a stack of old dirty egg cartons, but so as not to be rude, I stuck them on the shelf. It wasn't until Ryan went out for eggs the first time that I realized I needed to guard those puppies with my life!

We go through TONS of eggs here. When you're baking all of your bread, granola bars, snacks, and muffins from scratch, you use some eggs. When you're looking for inexpensive protein sources, you go through even more eggs. So, the first time Ryan brought back my order of 60 eggs and he came home with a black bag full of eggs, I had a light bulb moment. I needed those egg cartons!

Wait a minute, I'm supposed to be talking about yard sales. About 3 weeks into our time here, we went to our first yard sale. A family on the next compound is preparing to move back to the States and so they were selling lots of goodies. We headed over there and found all sorts of treasures. We laughed like crazy when we got them home and realized that NEVER, just 4 short weeks earlier, would we have found value in those items.

My favorite score was a jumbo canister of taco seasoning...unopened! We also bought a baggie full of bandaids, gauze, and first aid goodies, several pieces of Tupperware including a pitcher that we have already used the heck out of, and a special popcorn popping pot with a crank. I can't tell you how many times in the past month we've used that baby. I even had one week where I wondered how many times in a week you could call popcorn and fruit a meal before it bordered on child abuse. What can I say, it's a daily learning curve here!

A few days later, we had some friends to dinner and they chuckled when we poured our drinks out of the "new" pitcher. They noticed that both the lid and the base had the previous owner's name sharpied on it and they thought it was quite funny. In my former life, that would have bothered me, but I was so excited to have the pitcher that I laughed right along.

Last week, I had the opportunity to go to another yard sale. This time, it was at the crazy neighbor's house and she'd asked Abby and I to help them. I was happy to help and what a cultural lesson it turned out to be. First of all, you have never bargained until you've bargained with a Nigerian. I heard all about how I should reduce the price because it was for their child, they are my brother in Christ, they have great need, etc., etc. It was crazy. I tried hard to just take the money and let the neighbors do the bargaining, but it didn't always work.

It also amazed me how they were buying things that they were unfamiliar with, just because they come from America. One lady paid me for a pastry blender and as she was walking away, she turned around and asked me what it was for. What?!?

But the thing that made it really interesting is that, unbeknownst to us, there was some sort of election or something taking place near our home. So, there were tons of military and police vehicles in front of our compound. The road was closed and people who wanted to come had to park and walk. But don't worry, there was no shortage of customers. Because the military and the police were happy to patronize the sale. I have no idea who was manning the tanks, but we had lots of folks inside our wall. At one point I counted 4 different uniforms and 22 guns sorting through my neighbor's shelves of books, DVDs, pharmaceuticals, and household goods. Abby and I just kept looking at each other and laughing. I told my neighbor, "Oh, I am so going to blog about this, it totally confirms that you are crazy!"

Isaac was enamored with one of the soldier's black, beret style hat and he told him as much. I suppose the soldier thought that made us family friends, because he then told me that I should let him marry my daughter. I explained that she was too young and that she would cost him way too many cows. He just laughed. Fortunately we've been warned multiple times to expect this and to turn it into a joke. It worked well!

I racked up at that yard sale myself as well ending up with 3 rolls of paper towels, a giant roll of aluminum foil, kool-aid, spices, index cards, and several other goodies! I guess I'm officially a yard-saler!