Madagascar Market

::mood:: listening
::music:: 89.5 FM – NPR

an interesting anecdote. an intriguing story. i love cultural studies, and this article caught my attention as i heard it read on NPR during my driving time today. it really served to illustrate the significance of communicating in one's heart-language.

enjoy...

Welcome to the market in Antananarivo, Madagascar.

Hundreds of rickety wooden stands crowd under a sea of umbrellas. Women stack their fruits and vegetables into neat pyramids. Men hack big chunks off a side of beef. And a woman deftly steps around a band of chickens, a dozen live geese riding in a woven basket on her head!

It’s an exciting, chaotic, and intimidating world. Especially if, like me, you want to buy something.

I, like many westerners, don’t like to bargain. Yet Madagascar is one of those places where you have to bargain if you want to get a decent price. Which is my problem. I don’t know what a decent price is here! Is a dollar too much to pay for a pound of mangos? Am I being had? Should I try to get my mangos for seventy-five cents instead of a dollar? Is it really worth fighting for twenty-five cents?

The alternative to all this anxiety is to shop at Jumbo. Jumbo is a perfectly western, perfectly familiar supermarket. No unidentifiable cow parts or mysterious vegetables here! Not only is everything in French, so I can tell if I’m buying instant soup or laundry detergent, but all the prices are labeled. No bargaining required.

Unfortunately, Jumbo is also exceedingly expensive.

The average monthly salary for a Malagasy is seventy-thousand RER, or thirty-five US dollars. A liter of cooking oil at Jumbo? Six dollars.

I realize that most people in this country will never be able to buy their food here. And I felt ashamed. I came to Madagascar to be challenged. And here I was, hiding out in an overpriced supermarket just to avoid worrying whether I’d overpaid for mangos!

Right then and there, I decided to confront my fear of bargaining and buy my food at the Malagasy market.

The next day, I surveyed my finance’s Malagasy co-workers and got an approximate price for a kilo of bananas: 1600 RER; about 80 cents.

I marched up to the closest produce stand and asked for a kilo of bananas.

“3000 RER”

“That’s the foreigner price,” I said.

And you know what she did? She nodded.

“I want the Malagasy price,” I said.

She gave me the Malagasy price alright…in Malagasy.

I realized then that bargaining isn’t just about getting the lowest price, it’s about having a human interaction. She was telling me that I have to earn the Malagasy price. And just like that, we’d established a relationship.

Sure I can shop only at supermarkets where I know I’ll get the same price as everyone else. But there’s nothing challenging, or human, about that.

In the end, she brought the price down. And by that time, we’d attracted the attention of everyone around us and we all laughed together at my failed attempt to bargain.

I still paid more than the Malagasy price, but if that was the cost of being invited into their world, it was worth it. It was still cheaper than Jumbo.

by Celia Beasley - A Seattle-based filmmaker, Celia took the chance of a lifetime, leaving it all behind to move to Madagascar. She is fluent in French, as are most of the island's residents. She will spend the next several months living in Madagascar.

the prequel...itself also great listen...