Lesson 3: Shopping on a Budget

Largely, I haven’t wanted to leave the house by myself, except to walk to work. My Swahili is poor and (despite having heard otherwise) most locals don’t know Kiingereza (that’s “Swahili“ for English). Until I learn a bit more, I’m not jumping on the daladala alone, lest I end up in Nairobi. Given that, my shopping options are limited. Being sick of starches, however, I had to break out of the house and get some of the fresh produce I knew could be had from the local women who set up shop in front of the dukas (small shops) along the Arusha-Dar es Salaam Highway, at the end of our dirt road.

Before leaving the house, I had asked my housemate what I should expect to pay for a few items. I don’t think you can call what I did haggling. I think the ladies were maybe just tired of my broken Kiswahili and agreed to take whatever price I was suggesting. This was true for all except one man who was selling grilled corn. He grinned and readily changed the price from mia mbili to mia oja—a 50% price cut from 200 to 100 TSH (Tanzanian Shillings). Not yet quick with the currency conversion, it wasn’t until I returned home that I realized I had only paid the precocious man seven cents.

After making the rounds, I made it back to the house with three tomatoes, three bananas, two Cokes, and an ear of corn that had been cooked over a fire. All of this for just right at $1.00, American. At home, this would have cost between $4.20 and $5.00.

To be fair, the corn turned out to be almost inedible—not quite the grilled corn you find at Riverfest. After remembering the scary looking pile of burnt fish (where’d he get fish in the middle of Tanzania??) that was sitting next to the man, I figured I’d been too mean to the chickens & maybe they were hungry. Here Pot Pie…