The curse of Malawian supermarkets
There are so many things I can't quite get yet about Malawi, but the one that stroke me the most is how expensive everything is in supermarkets. And I keep questioning how people manage to live out of the little money they earn. For a bit of context: - Mzuzu as only a couple of big shops and Western products are limited. What I would like to talk about (and reflect on) in this post is how expensive normal, ordinary things that Malawian households may need are. - an average Malawian salary sums to about 500,000 Malawian kwacha (£210), with teachers earning even less - around 400,000 kwacha (£170) and someone working in the university as a secretary or a research assistant earning about 600,000 kwacha (£250). Now, showing the prices below - some or most of which are higher than what we would pay for these products in the UK, I ask: how do Malawians live? For example, a litre of milk is 7,799 kwacha (£3.30) and a carton of juice is 11,599 kwacha (almost £5!!). For a packet of biscui...
