A Kitty In Kenya: A Trade Agreement

Weekends and Nairobi are always fun and tiring. Its nice to have a change of scenery, browse the stores for imported goods - looking for any little reminders of home: Betty Crocker cake mixes, SunMaid dried fruit, Frosted Flakes, Kellogg's cereal bars.

This past weekend, during my trip into Nairobi, I decided to visit some of the local vendors in their dukas - or shops- to look for some souvenirs to take home to family and friends. I have mentioned before that this type of shopping in Kenya can require a lot of bargaining: The Negogiations Were Short. This time I decided to help stack the odds a bit more in my favor and arm myself with items o trade for the souvenirs, in addition to cold hard Kenyan shillings of course.

So, I began to look through the house for things that I would not be using before my departure in June...gently used items....any "extras." I found quite the cache: some ink pens, two packs of post it notes, two gently used t-shirts and a pair of shoes, a rain poncho, some stickers, bug spray and a few toothbrushes.

On Saturday, I set out to the dukas with Visiting Doc, who came along to witness Kenyan Trading in action. The idea of walking into a shop...even a small one...and asking to trade something to get a lower price is not often seen in the US, so Visiting Doc was interested to see how this all worked out.

At the first vendor, I found two picture frames and a small soapstone bowl. The vendor scribbled his price on the bag of a newspaper....I frowned at him and scribbled by counter-offer. Then he frowned. "Oh....that is too low," he complained. I pointed at his scribble. "This one is too much."

Let the negogiations begin!

He scribbled another number. So did I. Finally, I hoisted up my bag like a mzungu Santa. "Can I give you a trade?" I asked. He began to look through the bag and the ink pens caught his eye.

"Oh...my children are needing these for school." I pointed at my second number. "I will give you this one plus 6 ink pens."

After some minor haggling attempts.....and my refusals.....we reached an agreement...and news of my trade bag began to spread. Soon, I was trading ponchos and shoes for a carved ebony elephant and t-shirts for wooden bowls.

At the end of two hours, I left quite pleased with the amount of goods I got for the amount of money I spent plus the traded items.....and of course - as always, the duka owners were happy too!