‘What’s Your Last Last Price?’ – The Malian Market

“Good Morning!  How are you?  How’s your family? And the other family? Your children? Did you have only peace last night?  Me? Oh, no problems to report.  Fam’s all swell.  The hubby is good.  Yup, children are fantastic, thanks.  And only peace last night.  So.  Do you have any bananas here?”

    Even  though I can plainly see the bananas and sometimes just want to hand the Malian woman a mugan (100 CFA) for the 3 bananas and be on my way, I still must greet this way at each stand.  In the larger towns, like San, you can easily get overwhelmed by choice and mass amounts of people, but you can usually get by without greeting every person you see.  In my smaller town, however, there may be less people, but the pressure is on to make sure I greet each person who looks up at me – and seeing that I’m the only white person within 27 km (where another PCV is placed) there aren’t a lot of people who don’t look my way.  Lets just say Wednesdays tend to be pretty exhausting.

    All towns, whether they have a market everyday or not, have one specific day in the week that is known as their Market Day.  If the town does have a daily market, Market Day is just the time when the freshest goods are available, aka wayyy more people.  In cities like San and Koutiala, I would just as well wait until the day after Market Day and still get pretty fresh goods and skip the masses.  My town, on the other end of the spectrum, has Market Day.  Yup.  Singular.  Wednesday means access to tomatoes, bananas, bread, peppers, teeny onions, and occasionally garlic.  These goods only last me 2, 3 days tops.  For, as those of you who have tried to keep bread, tomatoes, or bananas fresh outside of a fridge in 90 degree weather for longer know, its next to impossible.  Oh how I miss whole foods.

    But, back to my main task.  After getting my normal goods, there are days when I need something a little fancier, like a plastic maize and blue mixing bowl, or some cloth to make myself a fabulous Malian outfit with, I find a friendly face selling said item and begin the bartering dance…

See above for greetings.

Then proceed to…

Me: ‘So how much for 1 yard of that fabric over there?’   

Malian: ‘Keme saba ni bidurru (1750 CFA).’

Me: ‘Eh?! That’s expensive.  Reduce it.’ (Yes, very straightforward, I would say its because of my poor language skills, but really, its just Mali)

Malian: ‘No.  You’re white.  You have money!’ (While laughing and smiling)

Me: ‘You must be a Coulibaly and have had beans for breakfast! (Malian joke that will literally crack them up) Give it to me at keme fila ni bidurru (1250 CFA).’

Malian: ‘ Eh, Allah! No.’

Me: ‘Fine.  What’s your last last price?’

Malian: ‘Keme saba (1500 CFA).’

Me: ‘Ayiwa (okay).  Here’s your money.  Ala ka sugu diya (May your Market Day be blessed). 

    The Malian market and bartering really just have to make you smile.  Most Malians laugh with you as you are telling them they are crazy for trying to charge you so much – when you both know what the correct price should be - and they always reduce it.  Sometimes its amazing how big the jump is from the first price to the last last one.  More advice:  Even if you are told a seemingly priceless green, yellow, and red belt (the colors of the Malian flag) with a shiny, rhinestone rimmed belt buckle adorned with the smiling face of our dear President Barack Obama on its face is only $2, barter.  You can probably get them to $1.75.  Maybe even a $1.50 if you tell them you named your donkey after them.