I am preparing now for my new life in Bobo : shopping.
In Burkina, whatever you want to buy (except food), you have to negotiate price with sellers. There is neither fixed price nor price tag at market (except at big supermarkets run by foreigners).
“That’s too expensive !”
“I buy more than one so put lower price !”
Like this, for each object, we have to negotiate the price…with calculate in yen and comparing the price with it etc…Plus, toward white foreigners (I’m part of white people here), sellers set up the first price twice higher than normal price. It is always.
So, I went shopping with my home stay host in town (although it was only 1 night) to avoid buying stuff with abnormal price. She is 27 year-old student in agronomy, pretty nice, frank and big…:) But after 2hour shopping, I was exhausted. At the end, I wanted to just buy things quicker even though I could negotiate more the price…
But I got one thing which I am very happy with :
“ Radio ”
I had wanted it since I came here because listening to RFI (Radio France International) is the only way to keep connection with outside world from Burkina apart from internet.
In Burkina, whatever you want to buy (except food), you have to negotiate price with sellers. There is neither fixed price nor price tag at market (except at big supermarkets run by foreigners).
“That’s too expensive !”
“I buy more than one so put lower price !”
Like this, for each object, we have to negotiate the price…with calculate in yen and comparing the price with it etc…Plus, toward white foreigners (I’m part of white people here), sellers set up the first price twice higher than normal price. It is always.
So, I went shopping with my home stay host in town (although it was only 1 night) to avoid buying stuff with abnormal price. She is 27 year-old student in agronomy, pretty nice, frank and big…:) But after 2hour shopping, I was exhausted. At the end, I wanted to just buy things quicker even though I could negotiate more the price…
But I got one thing which I am very happy with :
“ Radio ”
I had wanted it since I came here because listening to RFI (Radio France International) is the only way to keep connection with outside world from Burkina apart from internet.
The price was・・・1500FCFA ( = about ￥375 = $3.7 = €2.3）!
In fact, daily goods are not as cheap as people’s life level here, I believe so I was surprised with that price and I was so happy about it ☆ After all, the price was normal for a radio though…
The mark is “SONICA”. You see a sticker saying “USE SONY IC”. Yes, it is Chinese product.
But it is pretty small (hand size) and I can catch BBC World station as well so I am happy :) Besides, I brought rechargeable dry cells from Japan so that I don’t have to worry about how to treat used cells in a country where there is no recycle system for that.
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