Shopping

Shopping in Jos is somewhat different from popping down to Tesco every week and coming home with all that you need.  There are only a couple of shops that I've found that actually display their prices.  Go to any of the small stalls or kiosks and you have to ask.  The price will depend on what you look like, if you're a regular, how business is going, how the stallholder feels that day and how well you can haggle.  

Yesterday I went into town to buy fruit, vegetables, fish and a printer cartridge.  Most of the time I enjoy the hustle and bustle of the streets and markets, being able to stop the man with the huge dish of plantains on his head and bargain for what I need (I haven't yet tried it with the man with the live hens on his head).  This time it was different.  At every kiosk and stall I went to I was charged an exorbitant markup - baturi price, worse than on any previous shopping trip.  One young woman shamefacedly admitted that she had asked too much for her tomatoes because I was white after I queried the cost.  It all leads to an ethical dilemma.  I fully acknowledge that as a foreigner I do have a far higher income than most Nigerians and definitely the ones at the stalls, however, it goes completely against my sense of fairness to accept being ripped off.  What should I do? I don't mind paying a little extra but I suppose it offends my pride to be taken for a fool.  It may be because we want to do good on our own terms.  Giving a gift of money that's greater than any extra charged for a bag of tomatoes somehow seems more acceptable than being asked to pay over the odds for it.  It's all to do with power - who's in control?  We were glad to be able to help one of the gate guards with transport costs for himself and his wife to go to her home village for the funeral of her sister but that was in response to an open request.  Perhaps it's also the feeling of subterfuge that irritates me.  In the end I was so fedup that I retreated to Flourish, an actual supermarket, small by UK standards but with non-negotiable prices clearly displayed.  It tells you something about my state of mind that I was seriously contemplating buying a packet of Foxes chocolate chunk cookies for nearly £3.  I did resist and got a packet of banana chips for 20p instead (last of the big spenders!) - it's all about good stewardship.

I don't know if anyone's been affected by the recent flooding in England.  Benue State in Nigeria has also had floods but with added complications.  I do feel sympathy for the people in England whose homes have been ruined by dirty flood water but the experience of one poor Nigerian who'd fled his home as the waters rose puts things into perspective. As he told reporters, Wuese Jirake had returned to his house to find it already occupied.

“This morning I visited my house. It is still inundated with the flood waters above my waist. There is now a hippopotamus in the house,” he said.
He said he had reported the situation to the authorities.
“I hope that when it is tired, it may leave my home. If there is any other way of dealing with the problem, the authorities need to pursue that because it is beyond my abilities.”

 Other houses have been taken over by snakes and crocodiles; at least the affected residents of England don't have that to worry about.