Bartering, and Why the Walk-Away Works

I spent the weekend up in Saint-Louis, a small city near the border of Mauritania (more on that next post). I needed to take a taxi at one point and asked a street vendor where I could find one, but of course he immediately tried to start selling me his jewelry. I asked the price of a necklace that had small chunks of jade, tiger eye, and Mauritanian beads on it. (This is, of course, all in French.)

"Oh that, Madame, that's a very beautiful piece, with many precious gems on it, I will give it to you for 30,000 CFA."

That's about $70. Um, no. I smile, say thank you, and start to walk away.

"No, madame, but how much will you give me for it? It's a very beautiful piece!"

"Yes, it is a beautiful piece, but I am a poor student and a volunteer and I cannot spend that much money."

"How much will you give me? How much, maximum, will you give me?"

"Oh, Monsieur, I would never spend more than 3000 on a necklace."

"3000! Oh oh oh no no, but it is such a beautiful piece, it is worth much more than that!"

"I agree, Monsieur, but I cannot pay that so I am going to take that taxi now."

I go over to the taxi and say I'm going to the Zebrabar campground and I will pay 3000 CFA. The taxi driver, who obviously has no idea where I want to go and will be asking me for directions as soon as we get over the bridge, nevertheless tries to up the price.

"Oh no Madame, that is 4000. The price of gas is so so high right now, this much per liter..."

"I know it's high, I work in Dakar, it is very expensive there as well, but I tell you the fare to the Zebrabar is always 3000."

The taxi driver agrees, still not knowing where I'm asking to go, and I'm about to get in when a young man runs up with the aforementioned necklace in hand. He and a few other men had congregated around the vendor and they had been arguing, I now realize, over whether the man should sell the toubab that necklace for 3000.

"The man, he says OK, 3000 is OK madame."

I nod, a bit startled--it's 10% of what he asked--and give him 3000 for the necklace, why not. I get in the taxi and we drive across the bridge, away from Saint-Louis. As soon as we are driving, the driver asks me if I'm familiar with the Zebrabar, a sure sign that he does not know where it is. It's astonishing how little taxi drivers know their own cities; this happens all the time.

"Monsieur, I asked you if you knew it and you said yes, that is not good, but OK--" I pull out my Lonely Planet guide, which I mainly use for this purpose, and rattle off the directions for him, then point out the signs to him as we get closer. The campground is 20k from Saint-Louis, half of it on dirt roads, and as we get closer the driver (who has already asked me if I was married--yes, of course I am--and told me that it would be good if I took him to the United States with me) starts grumbling.

"Ooh, it's so far...Ah, what a big speed bump...Oh look, here's the entrance to the park, are you sure you don't want to be dropped off here? You know, I have to drive ALL the way back now..."

I smile and agree; yes, it is a long way, and yes, he does have to drive all the way back. When we get to the campsite, I hand him a 5000 CFA note and wait for 2000 in change.

"OK, so that's good?" he says chipperly, hoping I will just leave him with the extra.

"No, monsieur, I need change. We said 3000." He starts making noises about not having change, so I dig through my change to find 3000 and trade that for the 5000.

"What, no present for me?"

"No, monsieur." I know that he already has another customer; a man in the last village asked him to stop on the way back. He assumes I don't know since they spoke in Wolof, but they bartered using French numbers so it was pretty obvious.

"OK, bye bye!" I say. He shrugs and waves back.