On the plane again, storytelling of the past

Yup, still on the plane, almost at JFK. Fortunately, I happen to have an entire four seat row to myself and a crew who doesn’t care if I put up the armchairs and create a full bed. Birthday luck, eh? (Quite a few South Africans seem to use “eh”, by the way.) Back to the story, where I left off.

The next day was a work day, where we worked on reflection, doing interviews of each other about our experience so far. Then we traveled to a village to do a tour set up by one of the villages. We knew it was a little bit canned and designed for tourists, but it was interesting nonetheless. The guide led us through the village and into a few huts, and we were able to take a seemingly realistic sample of what village life was like. We saw the inside of a few homes and some children grinding grain, as well as the general surroundings. Then the guide led us to the curio shops, which was a very new experience for me.

The curios are the small little trinkets usually carved by locals or other villages nearby. The vendors themselves were very up in your face, trying to draw you into their stalls with “hello, friend, what’s your name? Where from? Just a handshake. I just want you to see what I have here!” I did one run around the stalls, practicing giving a nod of acknowledgement then moving on. Then I chose a random stall and stopped there, just to be hit with the overwhelming new phenomenon of bargaining.

I am sad—okay, not really sad at all—to say that a combination of factors led to my subsequent shopping craze. One was the low price, once I got it down to it. In the U.S. the things there would be marked up maybe 200% or more for what we could get it for there in the village. The second factor was the act of bargaining. I’ve never bargained before, and the raw excitement was new to me. Trying to find a satisfactory price, usually more than half of what they originally asked is a battle and a game at the same time, as well as a mental challenge with real stakes (made especially hard and fun when bargaining in three currencies—rand, kwacha, and dollars—sometimes in multiple combinations.) I calculated it out afterwards and found that I spent somewhere around 70-80 dollars, but the return was worth it. Besides, I hate gift shopping, and now I have a solid stash for the future.

The last thing we did that day was go on a cruise on the Zambezi River. We were able to find the hippopotamuses (hippopotami? Spellcheck is telling me both are right) that we had sought. We also found a herd of elephants and crocodiles. The cruise was a good way to relax after packed days, as it we could sit back, laugh, and talk. And, once again without fail, the sunset was spectacularly vibrant.