Lessons in neo-colonial barter
A tourist’s education in East Africa: Part 2 of 2.
Note: This post collects moments where there was a disconnect between my expectations of an experience and reality. By no means do I intend to diminish the beauty of this region or discourage others from exploring it — Kenya and Tanzania make for an incredible adventure.
There are five of us, so we decide to experiment with a matatu, the local bus, to get up the street. One pulls up in seconds and we slide in. As we turn back onto the street, the conductor barks, “200 shillings.” We all start rummaging for cash and coordinating with each other for change. The elderly African woman next to me taps my arm and asks where we’re going. I tell her the supermarket, and she responds, “That only costs 100 shillings.” I close my eyes and sigh deeply, then spread the news. We gather our money and hand it over, but the conductor wants his bloated “mzungu” (white person) fare. For the first time since arriving in Kenya, I lose my temper and berate the man, telling him that he got a fair price and that we aren’t paying a shilling more. We ride in silence to the supermarket and when we get off, we don’t get any change back. He didn’t get his 200 shillings, but we grumble out of principle.
It’s our first night in Stone Town. The people ignore us, our hotel is beautiful, and we keep making rights into tiny alleyways to get ourselves good and lost. We meet a Canadian friend who arrived a day earlier, and he takes us to Forodhani Gardens for some street food. A salesman who promised him a good price yesterday herds us over to his stall and reassures us that we are friends. We enjoy our lobster kebabs and laugh and mingle with the staff. This is exactly the kind of interaction we have been craving. At the end of the meal, they take up our empty paper plates and tell us, still laughing, that we owe 16,000 shillings each, when we know that the kebabs cost 5,000 for foreigners and 300 for Africans.
The laughter abruptly stops, we look at one another, and we all share the same look: we have had enough. This time, we will not be backing down.
A long stand-off ensues. We eventually get prices from other stands, the Africans scream at us, and we tuck what we think is more than fair under the tray of kebabs and walk on. The cook starts to follow, telling us that we can’t make our own prices, that we are costing him his livelihood, and that we are thieves. As two cops walk by, he tells us that he will be calling the police to show us what the real Africa is like, and Peter points at the cops and tells him to go ahead. The cook says he prefers to go to the real police station, and I dismiss him with a roll of the eyes. We walk towards the taxi line, when suddenly the cook runs ahead and stops a very homeless-looking man and starts speaking to him quickly in Swahili. All at once, we understand.
This has nothing to do with right or wrong. We are being robbed, and now that his first attempt has failed, the cook is going to use violence to get what he feels owed. We all stoop in defeat. Peter marches up to the cook and throws the remaining bills in his face
We see that same smiling salesman again the next day, and when he catches us staring at him, he pulls his cap low over his eyes and slinks off.
We decide to try the local bus to get to the other side of the island. I am prepared this time. I asked our hotel manager in advance how much the bus should cost, so when we approach the driver, I don’t even say hello. I press the bills into his hand and get into the bus. He starts talking about how our backpacks cost extra, but we ignore him and stare out the window. The bus finally pulls away, and I am proud of myself. Peter tries to chat with the driver but is ignored.
This is our third blissful day on the east coast of Zanzibar. Our bungalow pours out onto an empty beach of white sands, and the water is waist high all the way to the horizon. We have run out of bottled water and wander over to the local village in search of a store. This is the first time that we have been able to explore a village. We step over piles of cow dung and nod at women bouncing naked babies on their knees. Yards are marked out by old tires buried in the sand. We load up on water at the store and turn to find a small group of children blocking our path. One little girl grabs my hand and starts massaging it, staring up at me with a shy grin. They all want to touch my hair. I crouch down and exchange with them a few minutes in English and broken Swahili. A toddler with a sand-crusted snot bubble pulsing from one nostril joins the group. Peter buys a handful of lollipops from the store and starts handing them out as we return to the main road. It’s then that we notice the dozens of children crowded outside the store’s entrance and the stragglers bolting out of their homes to join us. All of their little hands grab up knots of our clothes and we are out of lollipops and it is heartbreaking. We pull away and wander down the beach. I can’t help but look behind me at all the empty outstretched hands.
We are back in our world, at an airport with familiar fast food offerings and a currency that doesn’t require a calculator to convert. We have two hours until our flight back to Brussels. I run through all of the uncomfortable moments from the past two weeks and find that all of them, from the crooked immigration officer to the salesmen trying to squeeze us for every possible cent, are subject to perception. I saw dishonesty and manipulation and disinterest and greed, but I was no victim to the people I encountered. For them, I was able to spend hundreds of Euros on flights and hotels and sensible shoes, but unwilling to pay a few extra bucks for a souvenir mug or taxi ride. They knew I didn’t think them worthy of a higher price, and I rebuffed them for refusing to treat me like a fellow African.
But why should they? Our governments spent all of modern history enslaving their ancestors, stealing their resources, divvying up the pie without any regard for tradition or culture or language, only to give it back to them with an alien infrastructure and fabricated rivalries designed to keep power in the hands of a few. We returned to them the independence we ourselves took and expected thanks for it, left them in squalor, then pumped money into opportunist dictators who only oppressed them more. We tell them that their educational systems are inadequate, that they should stop having so many children, and that their governance systems are outdated, but when they ask for help with genocide or a famine, we suddenly have no opinion.
Then, to top it off, some 27-year-old American woman walks into their stores and tells them that they are the cheats and that she has no time for their games because she has a taxi waiting but would they like to go for a coffee later.
I undoubtedly paid a fair price. I have gotten more than what I deserved, and can only hope that it’s enough to erase some blustering Western arrogance.
Email me when Fran McCrae publishes or recommends stories