The art of negotiating

Learning to negotiate is not something that has come very easy since moving to Burkina. Which, really surprised me because before moving here I thought negotiating would be a piece of cake-you know, with all the yard sale experience I have in all.

I'm actually kind of embarrassed to even write that.

Why in the world I thought that going to a yard sale once a month or so would somehow give me an advantage in negotiating here is beyond me.

But that's what I thought, and boy was I ever wrong! Ha! I could not have been less prepared!

Oh, my skills at negotiating for Barbies and children's books and the occasional Little Tykes toys did nothing to prepare me for the realities of how a country negotiates for everything. Every. single. day!

Negotiating is a way of life here in Burkina. And not only do you negotiate for just about everything....it is expected prior to every purchase.

And since I am a girl that hails from a country that does not engage in this practice, it has taken a while to get used to it. And even after living here for 16 months, it's still not something that I particularly enjoy doing. It's simply something I do because I have to. Even though it's a hassle.

Sometimes I just want to go buy something and pay asking price and walk away. But alas, that is not practical here. Because if I were to settle paying for immediate asking price I would end up paying over double than what it is worth. And here's why....

I'm white. And I'm a female. Two aspects of myself that I can't change but work against me every time I leave the house in an attempt to buy something in a country that is 99.9% black and where women are inferior to men.

So of course, for me, the price will always be higher. They see my white skin and will try to charge me double because I'm not a Burkinabé, I'm a "nasada" or foreign/white person.

For a long time it was more difficult to negotiate because we were new to this country and we simply didn't know how much items should cost. We didn't know how much we should be paying for fruits and veggies, or fabric, or djembés, baskets or whatever it is that we were wanting to buy. But over time and growing experience we have learned. We're still learning. We have a better understanding of what products costs on the market here and a fair price to pay.

Negotiating, as I am learning, is not about getting the cheapest price for a product. Because if my main purpose when haggling for something on the market is to get it for as cheap as possible, then I am responsible for taking advantage of the seller and not offering them a fair price for their products....and when he/she tries to gauge me with an overinflated price they are likewise trying to take advantage of me. Negotiating should be the mutual exchange of a fair price and product for both the buyer and the seller.

I have also learned, in this art of negotiating, that if I am not offered a fair price for a product, I have to either be willing to walk away and go somewhere else and start all over again, or stand around and negotiate until I am offered a more reasonable price.

And I've done both, many a times.

Take this fabric for instance. I needed a lot of fabric to cover a dozen tables for our churches Christmas service. I wanted to go to the Afro Tex store, where all of the fabric is price as marked and you don't have to worry about negotiating. But when we arrived midday the store was closed for afternoon siesta. So, I had no choice but to take to the streets to find what I needed. After looking through one vendors fabric and not being offered decent prices for some seriously cheap fabric, we left, and went looking elsewhere. That took me to a different vendor who had much nicer fabric but wanted to try to charge me three times the price I knew it was worth. Not wanting the hassle of having to go some place else I dug in my heels and stood in this guy's stall for 30 minutes haggling on a price. He wanted to charge me 36.000 franc for eight meters of fabric. I walked out having paid him 15.000 franc.

I was able to bring him down over half and we were both able to walk away satisfied with a fair deal.

I've had vendors quote me a price, clearly not expecting me to negotiate back with them, and then all of a sudden I start countering their offer with my own and they start laughing and their eyes light up with excitement, clearly delighted that I'm engaging with them in an aspect of their culture. Like I said, negotiating is expected here.

It doesn't always happen like that. Sometimes vendors are just unwilling to budge on price even when it's too high, no matter how much we negotiate, so we either have to pay, or walk away.

It's just another aspect of life in Burkina. It is challenging and exhausting and makes shopping downright burdensome at times. But it's an aspect of life here that can not be avoided, and (despite how annoying it can be at times) I wouldn't want to. I'm happy to experience this aspect of life here. It's good to ruffle some cultural feathers every now and then. =)

And it has been fun to learn how another culture operates. Holy cow do Africans ever drive a hard bargain! They put my yard sale bartering to shame! Whenever we go back to the U.S. I'm gonna have a whole new set of negotiating skills to bust out at our neighborhood garage sales! Whoop whoop!

But in the meantime, I'm just gonna keep learning how they do life here for the year and a half we have left,  continuing to build confidence to engage with them in their culture, and keep fine tuning this art of negotiation.