We're decluttering like crazy prior to an international move. Uneasy choices are being forced. Books are heavy, so too is Secondborn's much loved, daily used trampoline. Which will out?
Yesterday was the Flea Market at our local International School. Very strict edicts issued in advance - you can set up between 0730 and 0830 only, with 1000 Ksh fines for each 10 minutes after that you take. Massive pressure carrying disintegrating boxes of the contents of your home up flights of stairs in full sun in less than an hour. Tiny tables for the volume of stuff. And being placed next to a family selling forty suitcases of clothes which drew literally thousands of low paid customers who walked through, over, behind, between my lesser stall, a steady stream of tens each minute in search of a bargain.
Uneasy contrasts between the mass pulling power of the next-door clothes stall selling shoes at a dollar a pair, and the box of Build a Bear clothes I was trying to offload.
'What are these?' people would say, staring skew-eyed at a sequined Hannah Montana top too small for the smallest baby.
Trying to explain how in the West children have toys which are pampered. Trying to hide the Build a Bear skateboard and Harley Davidson biker outfit deep at the bottom of the pile. Even long-term expats shook their heads, recognised how long they'd been out of the country. Shamefaced.
Everything had been cleaned and sorted. Jigsaws had been counted, games had been ordered with rubber bands and all the bits. I'm not trying to make a massive profit. But it is expensive moving countries, and decent goods should command a fair price. Goods are very expensive in Kenya with 33% import tax, and I was charging cheaper secondhand UK prices. They should have been seen as good bargains. £8 for a £40 child's carseat. 80p for a pink sequined purse. You can't buy them at all here, let alone at anything like that price. And no one NEEDS a pink sequined purse.
But boy oh boy did my hackles rise at the attitudes of many of the entitled, monied Kenyan women I dealt with. Who acted in this, as in other ways, that their money bestowed power and they were going to use it to push me far far beyond fairtrading. Yes bargaining is part of the culture. I am happy to bargain. But there does need to be a realisation of the power of the seller too. Of their need for a bottom line in terms of price, or, increasingly for me, in terms of respect. I start off quoting a fair rate. Which was seen, by the majority, as a sign of weakness. Which they halved in their counter bid. No, I would say, I started with a fair offer, that is what I would like please. Some acquiesced. But several were just unable to see a seller as an equal. One woman, trying to buy a child's carseat. That implies she has a car. I was already quoting less than 25% of what it would cost new in UK. Probably 10% of its cost in Kenya. Yet she halved my bid. No, I said. And no again.
'I'm leaving' she said in threatening tones, still clutching it to her chest. 'I'm leaving, you will LOSE this sale.' 'Fine. You are welcome to leave. I suggest you go and search the rest of the stalls for this product at a rate you consider fair. Its a shame you are unwilling to spend a fair rate for your child's safety.'
And eventually, forking out, she opened her wallet brimfull, with 30,000, 40,000 £300, £400 in there, 30, 40 times what I was quoting there. Huh.
Some sellers to whom, in the end, I refused to sell.
'These are our children's toys. We have happy memories with them. I have been quoting you a fair price and been willing to come down a bit more. But I've decided now I don't want to sell them to you at any price.'
And how good it felt to have the freedom to be able to be that clear. And later, to hear the sweet, elderly Korean woman next to me adopt the same tactic, which surely is very very disrespectful in her culture too.
The theft. People to whom one quotes a fair rate for a luxury item. Who purse their lips, shake their head, loiter. And then, when I'm distracted by someone else, steal the item. They really wanted it. I wasn't being reasonable. So they took it.
'Oh my God,' gasped seasoned worldlywise Nairobi hands to each other as we cleared up at the end. 'Never, ever again. They were truly awful weren't they?' And they were.
I've recently joined a facebook group of mums resident in Nairobi. But oh my, the discussions there between fellow Kenyans, about their nannies. Whom some pay, it turns out, 4000 KSh a month - less than half of the legal Kenyan monthly wage. Around what you'd need to pay for a sandwich lunch for three in a not very plush expat caff. Seem to expect nannies to work each day of the week, without Sundays off. And moan about their expectations when at this rate they can barely afford enough to eat, let alone to rent a room in a slum, to send their own child to school.
I will be grateful to be back in UK. To be surrounded by people, women, who know what it is is to care for their own child, to change their own child's nappy, to mop their own floor and their children's pools of vomit. Who know that doing this isn't always pleasant, but is one of the ways that one builds relationship with a child, by being consistently, lovingly there. Who have a sense of great gratitude to those talented, skilled, good humoured childminders who become deeply valued loved members of the family, of whom one knows, if the chips were down, they would rescue your child from a fire at risk of their own life. This is what matters in life. Valuing grounded relationships, consistent love, acknowledging and respecting the contributions we each make.
And to the woman who wanted the game of Smath and the pink sequined purse and had to go away emptyhanded. I hope you dreamt of them last night. May you learn to treat those you think to be lesser than you better in future.
Yesterday was the Flea Market at our local International School. Very strict edicts issued in advance - you can set up between 0730 and 0830 only, with 1000 Ksh fines for each 10 minutes after that you take. Massive pressure carrying disintegrating boxes of the contents of your home up flights of stairs in full sun in less than an hour. Tiny tables for the volume of stuff. And being placed next to a family selling forty suitcases of clothes which drew literally thousands of low paid customers who walked through, over, behind, between my lesser stall, a steady stream of tens each minute in search of a bargain.
Uneasy contrasts between the mass pulling power of the next-door clothes stall selling shoes at a dollar a pair, and the box of Build a Bear clothes I was trying to offload.
'What are these?' people would say, staring skew-eyed at a sequined Hannah Montana top too small for the smallest baby.
Trying to explain how in the West children have toys which are pampered. Trying to hide the Build a Bear skateboard and Harley Davidson biker outfit deep at the bottom of the pile. Even long-term expats shook their heads, recognised how long they'd been out of the country. Shamefaced.
Everything had been cleaned and sorted. Jigsaws had been counted, games had been ordered with rubber bands and all the bits. I'm not trying to make a massive profit. But it is expensive moving countries, and decent goods should command a fair price. Goods are very expensive in Kenya with 33% import tax, and I was charging cheaper secondhand UK prices. They should have been seen as good bargains. £8 for a £40 child's carseat. 80p for a pink sequined purse. You can't buy them at all here, let alone at anything like that price. And no one NEEDS a pink sequined purse.
But boy oh boy did my hackles rise at the attitudes of many of the entitled, monied Kenyan women I dealt with. Who acted in this, as in other ways, that their money bestowed power and they were going to use it to push me far far beyond fairtrading. Yes bargaining is part of the culture. I am happy to bargain. But there does need to be a realisation of the power of the seller too. Of their need for a bottom line in terms of price, or, increasingly for me, in terms of respect. I start off quoting a fair rate. Which was seen, by the majority, as a sign of weakness. Which they halved in their counter bid. No, I would say, I started with a fair offer, that is what I would like please. Some acquiesced. But several were just unable to see a seller as an equal. One woman, trying to buy a child's carseat. That implies she has a car. I was already quoting less than 25% of what it would cost new in UK. Probably 10% of its cost in Kenya. Yet she halved my bid. No, I said. And no again.
'I'm leaving' she said in threatening tones, still clutching it to her chest. 'I'm leaving, you will LOSE this sale.' 'Fine. You are welcome to leave. I suggest you go and search the rest of the stalls for this product at a rate you consider fair. Its a shame you are unwilling to spend a fair rate for your child's safety.'
And eventually, forking out, she opened her wallet brimfull, with 30,000, 40,000 £300, £400 in there, 30, 40 times what I was quoting there. Huh.
Some sellers to whom, in the end, I refused to sell.
'These are our children's toys. We have happy memories with them. I have been quoting you a fair price and been willing to come down a bit more. But I've decided now I don't want to sell them to you at any price.'
And how good it felt to have the freedom to be able to be that clear. And later, to hear the sweet, elderly Korean woman next to me adopt the same tactic, which surely is very very disrespectful in her culture too.
The theft. People to whom one quotes a fair rate for a luxury item. Who purse their lips, shake their head, loiter. And then, when I'm distracted by someone else, steal the item. They really wanted it. I wasn't being reasonable. So they took it.
'Oh my God,' gasped seasoned worldlywise Nairobi hands to each other as we cleared up at the end. 'Never, ever again. They were truly awful weren't they?' And they were.
I've recently joined a facebook group of mums resident in Nairobi. But oh my, the discussions there between fellow Kenyans, about their nannies. Whom some pay, it turns out, 4000 KSh a month - less than half of the legal Kenyan monthly wage. Around what you'd need to pay for a sandwich lunch for three in a not very plush expat caff. Seem to expect nannies to work each day of the week, without Sundays off. And moan about their expectations when at this rate they can barely afford enough to eat, let alone to rent a room in a slum, to send their own child to school.
I will be grateful to be back in UK. To be surrounded by people, women, who know what it is is to care for their own child, to change their own child's nappy, to mop their own floor and their children's pools of vomit. Who know that doing this isn't always pleasant, but is one of the ways that one builds relationship with a child, by being consistently, lovingly there. Who have a sense of great gratitude to those talented, skilled, good humoured childminders who become deeply valued loved members of the family, of whom one knows, if the chips were down, they would rescue your child from a fire at risk of their own life. This is what matters in life. Valuing grounded relationships, consistent love, acknowledging and respecting the contributions we each make.
And to the woman who wanted the game of Smath and the pink sequined purse and had to go away emptyhanded. I hope you dreamt of them last night. May you learn to treat those you think to be lesser than you better in future.
