An extract from the blog we did on the overland trip from Durban, South Africa to Kenya and back over 91 days, with Phillippa and James Lycett and their two children and Phillippa’s parents Jenny and Julian Gordon (who were in their 70’s) from July to October 2013.
Arusha, Tanzania
After 6 weeks of being on the road, completely out of our comfort zone and living out of our vehicles, we have all learned the art of surrendering to the unusual, the unknown and the unexpected, oh and the dust! How could I have forgotten the dust!
We are now all so slick at manoeuvring and navigating the quirkiness and vastness of East Africa at every turn. As a team we are a force to be reckoned with. Watch us slide with oil slick precision through the edgy and tricky border posts with stereotypical pushy touts, or figure out the directions on a near-unnavigable road, or make conversation with anyone, well everyone. There is, however, one element that we all find slightly uncomfortable, slightly itchy-scratchy, mostly because of our collective conservative Anglo-Saxon upbringings. And that ‘be’ the art of haggling.
Some years back when in Turkey, a young man who had married an English woman explained to Donald and me, how uncomfortable he felt in the UK when he went with his father in law to purchase a scooter. He was amazed that (a) the salesman did not even offer him a glass of tea and (b) worse, that his father in law did not haggle the price, a practice he thought was rather uncivilised. Since then I always tried very hard to view haggling as the “dance between buyer and seller” and a ritual, but sometimes when you only have a few minutes and 9 other people waiting for you to purchase a bucketful of bright, juicy tomatoes on a roadside, there is no time to dance the full haggling routine.
Mostly I feel uneasy. “What’s wrong with just giving me your best price?” I think. It would save so much time. Ah but I forget time has taken on a completely new meaning on the trip where 100km actually means 3 hours or your food “will be ready soon” actually means “we will start to cook it in about an hour” . There is no need to rush, what on earth for? Time, is something we are learning very fast to forget. And we are loving it.
So from the endless side stalls on dusty Zambian roads where the bright tomatoes and purple onions explode out of sun-faded buckets, to the Tanzanian town markets with produce and touts aplenty, we have found ourselves in a variety of positions, mostly where caveat emptor seriously has meaning and the seller mostly rules the day.
Yesterday, in Arusha, I ventured out with Jenny to the most amazing second hand clothing, furnishing and accessory market in search of sandals for her, Jules and Don. The clothes come in from the States and UK and Europe and are sold by a cooperative. There is a massive open walled shed where three avenues of pallets of “your oh so last seasons” are the local “oh so this season statements”: shoes, bags, satchels, linen, bedding, dresses, jeans, lingerie, belts, and it goes on. Each pallet is owned by a seller/s and you can find anything from CAT boots to cheap Chinese vogue. It’s ordered, well managed and amazing – I was really sad that I didn’t have enough time, money or need to stock up on some good labels. But Jen and I managed to score a really great pair of second hand ladies leather sandals after following the rules. “Ask the price, halve it and halve it again. If they won’t budge walk away.” We had the time to do the haggling dance and eventually after walking away a third time we were pursued by the seller who was ready to sell. I watched Jen smile and the seller and his mate smile, and we all walked away feeling we had achieved something. I wonder how my local supermarket manager back home would feel if I was to do this every time I wanted to buy dog food.
Satisfied and feeling pretty proud of how well that little haggle worked out, Phil and I braved the local fruit and veg market. A rather daunting task given that we are so obviously tourists – and as we stepped in the touts surrounded us. I mean why do we need someone to help us buy ten oranges. So we negotiated a bucket / bagful of delish carrots from a nice lady – with the assistance of about 6 young men. Then the one personable young man insisted we went to meet his “mama”. As we walked passed the meat section, my dear vegetarian friend Philly was audibly gagging, but I upped the pace and we met our tout’s “Mama”. Except, as Phil was still reeling in horror at the visceral smells and sights of the dead livestock on display, I noticed that “Mama”, was looking a little shell-shocked at discovering that a pushy young man as her agent without having known it. We managed to negotiate a bucket of tomatoes and 3 cucumbers, er, sorry no, he forcibly removed one cucumber to ensure he got his slice of the commission.
Fresh on to the scheme, with Phil desperately trying to regain composure with memories of little lambs and calves frolicking innocently on undulating hills, I boldly stomped through the market leaving the tout behind. Stopping at a sweet young woman’s stall with oranges beautifully arranged I asked her how much. At this point another young man who had been following us, stepped up and with the best ham-acting seen this side of the Zambezi – declared “This is MY mama.” Phil says I retorted very forcibly “Um this is not your mama!” at which point the lady and her neighbour yelled at the young man who skulked away, leaving as to do a very delicate pas de trois with a very genteel Tanzanian fruit seller. We paid the price, we took our 25 oranges feeling very very happy with our purchase.
Ah the dance of the haggler. Thank goodness we have learned a variety of styles and we look forward to learning a few more on the way.
We never turned to look back at the lady who sold us the oranges. But we suspect she too was happy, very happy indeed.
-ends
