Consumer Speak

Florance Kasigo (left); Gloria Magqashela

Florance Kasigo
Florance Kagiso lives in Kasane in Botswana where she works as a tour guide. She has been there for six years, having moved from her hometown, Gumare, about 1000 km further north.

Mostly here in Kasane people buy the big packs of toilet rolls from the supermarket and they use that for everything. Some people who have a salary buy tissues in boxes but not the ones in little packets. In bigger towns there are pocket tissues in the shops but in smaller towns like Kasane you don’t see them. In the villages people only use toilet paper. There are different colours and qualities and there are different prices but I think most people use white; the cheapest. I use toilet paper most of the time but when I’m travelling I buy a box of paper tissues. I go back to Gumare once a month and I take tissues with me then. Also when I go to Gabarone for work.

Gloria Magqashela
Gloria Magqashela is a mother of three daughters who all live at home in Cape Town. One of them, Veronica; has a three month old baby, Hope. Gloria works as a maid and looks after her granddaughter while her daughter is at school.

Most of the time we use toilet paper which we usually get from the supermarket, Pick and Pay. We also buy it at the flea market where it is cheaper, 10 Rand for a pack instead of 17 Rand in the supermarket. I buy one-ply and only white, it’s the cheapest. There are other kinds and some people buy them, it depends on how is your pocket. I don’t buy any special name, we always prefer to check out the price. People don’t buy kitchen towels. I use them for cleaning in people’s houses but I don’t buy it at home. I use it to make things dry and shining – most cloths have fluff so the kitchen towels are better.

For the baby I buy baby wipes. They are expensive but they are worth it. They cost about 38 Rand for 72 wipes. And I buy Pampers. The cost varies on the age of the child but Hope is a premature baby. I pay 80 Rand for 43 nappies. Nowadays most of us use Pampers or Huggies but other people buy cheaper brands. I wouldn’t though, they are not so good. They become heavy very quickly and your baby can be wet. Pampers last longer. Even for my children (aged 19, 17 and 11) I used disposable nappies. People are too lazy to wash cloth nappies. They work, they haven’t got time when they get home.

Pocket tissues? Some people buy them, they are not too expensive. I don’t, though. If I have a cold I use toilet paper or a handkerchief.

 

Marianne Grant-Strover and her husband

Marianne Grant-Strover
Marianne Grant-Strover is an international property developer in Cape Town, with a flair for interior decoration and design. She also lives part of the year in England.

I like to have a design on kitchen rolls and toilet paper. You can get kitchen rolls with little pots of fowers or kitchen things on them and at the moment they have Christmassy designs on them too. And toilet rolls have flowers or little puppy dogs on them. I usually get those until I get told off by my husband – and then I get plain ones. Some have a design of a puppy but in white, so that’s a compromise.

I only buy white ones – toilet rolls; kitchen paper and tissues; I can’t bear the thought of peach or blue tissues or toilet rolls. It’s the same with sheets and things in the house, only white. My husband says coloured and perfumed loo rolls are bad for haemorrhoids – so white always. I think the toilet paper I buy is called Supersoft , it’s two-ply, anyway; about the best quality you can get. I don’t think you can get any thicker here, but then two-ply is enough. I don’t buy any special brand or quality kitchen paper, I just choose the design. They are not very thick or substantial here, not like in England. For tissues I buy Kleenex, the other brands are rubbish here. In fact I don’t even know any other brands; I suppose Woolies (Woolworths) have their own? I use them every day for cleaning my face. I don’t know why they don’t produce man-size tissues here, I always buy those in England. Here I have to use two sheets instead of one mansize one. I wonder, too, why no one has invented oval or round tissues – it’s a waste, you don’t need the corners. I guess it’s easier for packaging.

I don’t buy pocket packs, just occasionally if I’m travelling but usually I just take a wad of man-size ones. I was given some packets of anti-viral ones in the street the other day; I took some but I wouldn’t buy them. I don’t buy wet-wipes either although I sometimes think I should, for the guest bathroom maybe. The children seem to get through an awful lot of them with the grandchildren though.

 

Ralph the ranger and the toilet paper tree

Traditional lore lives on in Ralph, one of the guides at the upmarket Kirkmans Kamp, a private reserve on the edge of Kruger National Park. Caught short in the bush? Just look for a toilet paper tree, also known as the weeping wattle (Peltophorum africanum). Grey green with large feathery leaves, it is a good substitute for Kleenex as long as you remember to brush off any bugs (main photo left). Also useful if you forget your toothbrush is the toothbrush tree (Salvadora persica). Snap off a twig, chew the end, and the result is a resinous brush recommended by WHO and used in Africa, India and elsewhere forthousands of years for dental hygiene. By the way, you can also eat its fruit, leaves, tender shoots and seeds.