I am a horrible negotiator. I have no idea where the line is between assertive and rude, and I want people to be happy. What would make market vendors happy, of course, is me purchasing their stuff.
The street markets in Senegal can be pretty intense. People see this lily-white foreign skin and get aggressive. I had my first negotiating experience recently at one of the smaller venues, Marche Carmel, near downtown. It was a Sunday – a great day to lose my marketeering virginity since not many people or vendors are out and about.
The main part of Marche Carmel is located in a huge, gazebo-like structure, with lots of food vendors, many of which were closed on Sunday. I’ll be honest: it smelled in there. Like rot. All I bought food-wise was some Sriracha sauce, because we didn’t ship any to Senegal and Sriracha is a miraculous product that should be used on basically everything sans chocolate-chip cookies.
Outsize the covered building are non-food vendors, selling everything from fabric from sculptures to household decorations. I found a pair of hilarious paintings I wanted to buy: they were made on wooden panels and featured squares depicting different “maladies” of the body. One square had a man peeing out red paint, and the illness was called “chaude pisse” (hot pee). Another had a guy covered in red dots, suffering from some kind of rash. They were kitschy and semi-tacky. I had to have them.
The vendor started his price-quoting process at $45 for just one painting, which I knew was a silly price. A reasonable fee for an item at Senegalese markets is usually about a quarter to a half of the original asking price. We went back and forth on a price for the two paintings, but then it started getting intense and my flight response kicked in. My lack of assertiveness makes me want to flee anytime I feel pressured or trapped, so after about 15 minutes of negotiating and not getting a price I felt comfortable dishing out, flee we did. Then it got weird.
As we walked back to our car, vendors started following us and hanging onto our arms, begging us to buy whatever they were selling. The paintings guy told me I would be the difference between his children eating or starving that night (which I know was just a sales tactic, but still). Vendors were tapping on our windows as we started to drive away, begging us to change our minds and buy something from them.
I ended up only purchasing these two little carved figurines, which cost about $12 for the pair. I thought that was fair. Of course, they have nothing to do with the actual African country I live in, because we don’t have giraffes and elephants.
What’s the best/worst/weirdest experience you’ve had at a market in a foreign country?
Rachael Cullins is a twentysomething American girl living in Dakar, Senegal, with her husband and two dogs. She blogs about her adventures in Senegal and travels elsewhere in West Africa. She will reside in Dakar until summer 2013, when she and her family will move to another foreign post as part of her husband’s career with the U.S. government. In addition to West Africa, she has traveled to France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Italy and Costa Rica and plans to continually add to that list.
