Feeling Foolish

Saturday, August 21

(David teaching me to play the drums while shopping at the Arts Center)

Susana and I met up with Robert this morning to go to the Arts Center. Robert was a student at the University of Ghana while Lacey (my roommate) was here last summer. Lacey gave me Robert’s contact information so that I could meet up with him while I am here. He said he would come with us to the Arts Center since two foreign girls shouldn’t go wandering around the Accra alone.

When we arrived at the Arts Center we met up with David and he took us to a couple of booths. As I was looking around Robert and Susana said they were going to look in the stall next to the one I was in and I told them I would be right behind them. As soon as they left, the guy in the stall started offering me “a good price” and promising to “make me a good deal”. Before I knew it I had bought a couple of things and was surrounded by guys trying to sell me things. Since I had come the previous week I thought I had a good idea of what things should cost and thought I could haggle on my own. Plus, David was with me and he wouldn’t let me get cheated, right? Wrong! I can be so naive and trusting! I knew we only had about an hour before we had to leave and I had some specific things that I really wanted, so I was feeling pressure to make quick decisions. I was led into a few different stalls and bought a couple things at each stall. While David was with me the whole time and actually is a really decent guy, he sees these guys on a daily basis and couldn’t exactly hurt their sale by telling me to stick to a lower price. After few minutes I was thoroughly overwhelmed and just wanted everyone to leave me alone. Right about then Robert and Susana came back wondering why I hadn’t followed them into the next stall. Robert quickly calmed down the situation and took over the haggling for me. By then, I had already bought quite a few things at way inflated prices and we decided to move along. As I told Robert what I had paid for each of the various items I felt more and more foolish, naive and like I had been taken advantage of. We stopped at two more stalls farther away from the initial ones we went to and I was able to buy two things at better prices. Robert would whisper what it should cost and, for the most part, I was able to get pretty near to that price. I’m a horrible haggler though! At the end of the experience, I was able to let the bad feeling go and just decided that I made some nice donations to shops here in Ghana J and, honestly even the inflated prices are really good compared to American prices.

As a side note: Just in case any one is worried about the above description I do want to note that I did not once feel like my safety was threatened and no one even came close to my personal bubble. While the shop guys were very persistent and enthusiastic sales people, they did not give the slightest impression of any bad intentions. The Ghanaian people, as a whole, are very hospitable and kind. I have felt more safe in this country that in the majority of countries that I have traveled in (and I think I’ve been to about 18-20 countries).

After dropping off all of my purchases, Robert and I met up with Naadu for a “Variety night” production on campus. “El noche de varidades” was put on by the youth of a local church and was really entertaining and well done. There was singing, dancing, and a drama performance that was really funny!