Shopping for National Meetup Preparation Begins

As we all know, our National meetup day is just by the corner. It is just 4 days away from us. Suddenly, it has apprehended us. The day is approaching very quickly. We had to start shopping.

It was on Saturday night when I was very tired and exhausted from organising our fitness football match and playing it that goodybest called me while I was already asleep, asking when we can go for the shopping. I was really feeling sleepy and I couldn't even give a reasonable response. I woke up and remembered that she called. We later spoke and then agreed on a day to start the shopping which is Monday being yesterday according Nigeria time.

I quickly dressed up to my fitness location that morning at exactly 6:34 am was when I got there. I trained others and as well trained myself. It was a quick training because few people were present. It is a festive season already and business men and women will be busy, hustling to cover up to make sales. It's understandable. We were only 8 persons that came out. We did 4 different programs.

Then I put a call across to goodybest to come out let's go for the shopping. I waited and she arrived in no time with her husband who drove us to the market.

First, we bought pepper. We call it black pepper or Cameroon pepper. It's very hot with good taste and aroma. It was grinded for us and we took these pictures there

	the pepper displayed for sale
Our first selfie
	our second selfie

Then we moved to where we bought seasoning cubes, spices and soya oil. The vendor was pleased to have us and he was busy reminding us the things that we ought to buy assuming we forgot. But we knew what we went for. That's there strategy to make sales. If you are not careful, you will buy even what you don't need at that time and the cash you went for won't be enough. We stock to our list. We bought
Soya oil, seasoning cubes, curry powder, fried rice mixed spice, salt, and so on. Goodybest took pictures there. She will share it herself.

We wanted to buy more of natural spices. Yes, this is the best. We went in search for the natural spices like ginger, numeric, garlic, and so on. We stumbled on them in one old woman's shop. Not just that she sales these in original form, she also prepared them, mixed them and bottle them for sale in those natural form. We scent if these spices were amazing. We bought fresh ginger, garlic and then bought dried and grinded tumeric (powered), and other spices. This woman knows how to prepare it very well. I am experienced in how to mix these natural spices and I am convinced that she mixed them right. After buying for the occasion, I bought for myself. Even goodybest bought hers and collected the woman's number so subsequent purchases. We took these pictures there

I took these pictures discreetly because most of them are usually afraid of taking pictures of their shops due to their beliefs that people use them for bad purposes. Your explanations won't even enter their ears.

After making payments, we left for disposable plates and spoons shop. We saw one not too far away from the spice shop. There, we bought disposable plates, spoons, cups and serviettes. Our load became heavier than we had to plead with owner of the shop to leave our loads there to enable us buy other things and return to pick them. We made sure that we could be able to recognise the shop when we return. After making payments, we took these pictures

Next, we went to cereals shop to buy rice. We saw the type we were looking for that will be good for fried rice. We bought 3 custard buckets of rice there according to our budget. Our target audience is 80 steemians. We just hope that this quantity will be enough.

We made payments and, guess what? I became very hungry. It's already afternoon and I didn't eat in the morning and went for workout. I became very weak and exhausted. I told goodybest that I could no longer walk around to buy things unless I eat. We already bought water and drank at that first shop were we bought pepper. It's like the water went and opened up all my body and made it ready for food. We had to ask the owner of the cereals shop to show us where we can buy food. He felt for us and personally took us to a food vendor a little away from his shop.

We ordered for garri and soup. The soups were different but this white soup in the picture below was the one ready. Afang soup was yet to be ready. Both of us are this and before we could finish this, the other soup was ready. We ordered it as well and ate together. Sorry, we couldn't take the picture of that on.

	white soup and garri

We went back to that shop and concluded our purchases. We bought the remaining things especially onions and salad cream along with other canned vegetables and took them to my house.

We sat down and made a list of all that we bought and the amount we spent and sent to the organisers group. We also listed out all the items that are remaining for the cooking. The screenshots from the group are here below

Other things are yet to be bought. A lot including drinks, meat and others. I will report the ones I am directly involved in.

One other thing I did was to send for our national meetup design flex to be printed out. It was concluded and paid for. Goodybest will help pick it up from my printer closer to her house. It was a hectic day for me but I am refreshed after rest. Expect more updates as we will continue shopping on Thursday or Friday.

All pictures are mine!

Cc: @goodybest