Ouagastreet Journal

Here's a job for you.  Push a hotdog cart up and down the busiest streets of the city at 2 p.m. in mid July with not a cloud in the sky.  Do it all day long.  Except, instead of selling hot dogs from the cart put and incased glass box with shelves of panties and bras. Most girls I know can't even count the times that they were walking down 2nd street and wished that some sweaty man was there to sell them some undies right in front of everyone.  Alas, this was the plight of poor Solomon.  He was a man I met across from my neighborhood doing exactly what I have described.  Except, I guess I live in more of a suburbia setting and it was about 110 outside.  Solomon seemed to be up beat though.  We joked around a little and he was understanding that I didn't want to buy any panties.  He just kind of smiled and said it wasn't easy and it was bad.  I didn't know what to say so I just told him good luck.

People here in Ouagadougou (and most of West Africa) will sell almost anything they can get their hands on here.  They'll either carry it to you or be a roadside vender. When I say "carry it to you" I mean that they seem like they have the attitude that you didn't want to  I like the time a guy walked up to me and tried selling me some g-string style tighty whities and some napkins.  I wonder if he just drew the short straw that morning or if he actually has been trying to sell those things for 3 years now.  I can't imagine who would buy them.  Well, I could see buying some napkins, but nut huggers?  No.  

My personal favorite is when I'm waiting outside of a club on the main strip and all the walking vendors come up to me to show me what I could take with me to the club that night.  I try to picture myself in the club dancing while holding on to things like two foot carved statues, leather sacks, picture frames, and spears.  I love it.  I'm having a beer right outside of a club and someone wants to sell me a spear at about midnight.  I'll like to smack the tourist that bought things in this situation and made the venders think it was a good idea.  

The bootleg DVD guys are every where.  They are there outside of cafe restaurants, clubs, and even the supermarket.  Each DVD comes with multiple movies.  Most of the movies are movies like The Marine with Jon Cena or other movies that went straight to TNT weekday time slots.  For the 20 movies on the DVD there are usually one or two okay ones though.  They always offer you some of the very best African porn.  I think every supermarket should have a guy selling porn to those who look like they could be in need of it.  That way, porn lovers everywhere wouldn't have to deal with the embarrassment of going into the "back room" of Blockbuster's.  

Buying things here can be fun and it can be frustrating.  If you buy from the street you can get a cheaper price than a store, but you run the risk of it not working because it was made in China.  Chinese stuff here is even cheaper than stuff that comes to the states.  I bought a pair of hair clippers on the street here.  Of course, they didn't work and with I took it apart to see why I saw that it was actually made with peices that were designed either to not work or break.  I found a foam spounge wedged between the plastic peice that was supposed to move the metal clipper head.  Good 'ol China business and its dirty ways.  Most of the bikes here are chinese too and I've seen first hand how they fall apart piece by piece and that's all I hear from the people that buy them.

Another way its frustrating is trying to haggle down from white prices.  I say white prices, but they know if you have money or not and if you do they start the haggling price out at amazingly bad prices.  For those clippers, the guy started out at $100.  No shame.  I talked him down to $30, but I still shouldn't have payed more than $20 for him.  It was just that I was surrounded by 20 smelly guys all trying to sell me things at once in 100 degree weather.  I was ready to get out of there.  People will say "My friend, my friend.  I give you good price.  Only one arm and a leg.  Good price because you my friend."  They really don't say an arm and a leg, but they might as well.  Assholes.  Turns out that you're really not their friend and they will lie to you through their teeth to get your money.  

Since I'm telling you about the negative I have to throw in a positive.  My mango lady was a sweety.  She had the best mangos in town and never once tried to over charge me.  As a matter of a fact, she would always throw in a free banana or small mango (I only bought the large ones).  She knew that if she was good to me I would pass up the other mango ladies and come to her.  She was a smart lady business lady because that's exactly what I did.  On a sad side note,  I'm talking about in past tense because its not mango season anymore.  I don't know when they are coming back, but my guess is that it won't be soon enough.

The fun part about bartering is that it makes shopping into an exciting experience when you're in the mood for it.  There are always 3 phone card guys waiting outside of the ATM.  When I go to get money out of the ATM booth they slyly wait outside like calm paranas before I stick my hand in the water.  When I come out I litteraly have to push them out of my bubble as I stand undecisive while they push each other like on black friday at Toys R Us.  Sometimes I take one of their cards and sometimes I walk past them to the guy who is waiting patiently behind them and buy his card.  Either way, I'm a stinker and they're a little crazy about selling those cards.  I don't blame them though.  People gotta eat.