Volunteering at a shop

It’s just a small shop specialised in Buddhist artefacts, e.g. incenses,  Buddha statuette and prayer cushions etc.  I’m just one of the 7 volunteers  who are doing  morning or afternoon shift 7 days a week.  We (including the manager) are all unpaid volunteers taking care the shop and a meditation room attached to it.  As the rents for the shop and the meditation room are waived by the owner of the shopping mall (and the patron of our shop), there’s very little admin cost involved in our shop, so every year we can contribute around  £7,000 to good causes.

Our customers are primarily middle-aged and elderly people,  who are not necessarily devout Buddhists but are very  keen to explore Oriental spiritual world.  Occasionally, we come cross some New Age youth (those most noticeable for  piercings & tattoos all over their body parts or faces), who are hunting for eccentric or talismanic objects. In fact, it’s often  this group of people who are the most generous when it comes to buying expensive goods, e.g. jewellery (made of animal bones or from other unknown material). Naturally, they’re warmly welcome in our shop.  However, they’re often too cool to utter what they want clearly and slowly, which proves a bit too difficult for the older generation and an Non-native speaker of English.(me).