The concept of modern western supermarkets where you can scan and pay for the products you want to buy, without the help of a shop assistant, might come from Sudan. Or specifically, from one of our favourite small shops here in Kosti. When the shop owner doesn't feel like calculating the total price of your shopping (-most of the shops here don't have tills-), you are free to do the calculations yourself and tell the shop owner. He doesn't seem to doubt the integrity of his customers and trusts that they will calculate the right price or at least something close to that. Sometimes, when he is at the back of his small shop, standing on a ladder, he simply asks you to leave the money on the chair or table and says he hopes to see you again soon, Inshallah. Like this is not enough, he also has a 'self service policy' when it comes to
tasting the products. A few weeks ago when I was there with one of Frank's colleagues, we were invited to dip our fingers in the bottle of home-made honey to see if we liked the taste, while we didn't even wanted to buy the honey. That was really no problem he assured us, while putting that same bottle back on the shelf. Truly, where do you find such customer friendly approaches these days? ;)
