Going shopping or taking a taxi, it all seems so simple – especially as we speak French. But because prices are not fixed, it always turns out to be an adventure.
Like buying mangoes at a small boutique on the street. I greet the veiled lady in Wolof, but she immediately realizes I am a newcomer. It is interesting, but after our 3 minutes of conversing the price of the mangoes is even less clear than before… “200 CFA (€ 0.30) each”, she says. There are also piles, a pile of 2 is 500 CFA, “well ok, I take them…” When it seems to be hard to get change for the 1000 CFA I give, I buy some peanuts as well. 25 CFA per bag. I want 4, which comes to 200 CFA, “ok that’s fine as well…” Eventually she hands me 200 CFA change. When I repeat the calculation, there is still 100 missing. My conclusion is that we will probably often pay too much, especially this first period in Senegal. But, when at the end of the day I notice that the woman has sold almost nothing more, I wonder whether it was so bad to pay too much…
The average waiting time for a taxi in front of our apartment is about 10 seconds. Taxis are driving to and fro. You yell where you want to go through the window and how much you want to pay. The taxi driver either lets you in right away or (more probably) he’ll give you a higher price. After a few days, I was already succeeding in getting a lower price. I was pretty proud that I paid only 2.000 CFA (€ 3.00) instead of the required 3.000 for a ride to the city centre. But when I joined a colleague for the same ride and he paid only 1.500, I knew there was a long way to go! It is a social game of bidding and bargaining, and we are becoming better at it… But most of all: we enjoy it. The word for bargaining in Wolof means literally “spending time together.” And spending time together is a good thing!
Great pictures! I’m really enjoyed reading this post. We cycle between feeling like we’ve overpaid and feeling like in the long run the extra 500cfa isn’t a big deal. Always learning!