The Cost of Trinkets

It was late afternoon in Kenya. They stood at the edge of a small village. Mud huts, squat ugly brown rectangles with rough walls and thatch roofs, sat clustered in a semi-circle. Each had a couple of tiny windows and a low door. The chieftain told them the insects were so thick in summer that they couldn’t have larger windows. This was July, winter in Kenya, so bugs were not a problem.

The handmade trinkets consisted mostly of bead jewelry and little banana fiber animals about the size of a tennis ball. They lay on a bright red checkered Masai blanket. The table on which they were displayed was cleverly woven from sticks crisscrossed in a square frame.

Dan McSorley, vascular surgeon, thirty-nine years old, balding and portly, watched his wife put on a bracelet. She grimaced when she snapped the tight-fitting buttons in place and then smiled. The bracelet, which had a pattern of multicolored triangles placed end to end on a white background, flopped around as she flicked her skinny wrist.

“Oh, Dan, it’s beautiful. What do you think?” asked Jennifer.

Their girls had already taken animal toys back to the open-air Land Rover. Lily had chosen an elephant and Samantha a zebra. The girls sat next to each other, laughing, as they pranced the animals along the top of the seat.

“Yeah, looks great. Let me see what they want for them, and we’ll head back to the lodge.”

As he turned, he noticed Leng, their driver, seated in the truck. Far in the distance a giraffe nibbled at an acacia tree. It was silhouetted against the sun which sat low on the horizon. Even at this distance he could see the slow motion of the giraffe’s prehensile tongue.

“Excuse me, how much for the bracelet and the toys?”

The Masai warrior who stood behind the table was about twenty-five years old. He had a slender build, patchy beard and a weak jaw. Like every person in the village, he wore a bright red tunic. This one had a single strap across his right shoulder. It was the women of the tribe who crafted all of the items, but they only spoke Swahili so he was forced to act as an intermediary. He spoke English well, although he didn’t think so.

“One second, please.” He picked up a simple handheld calculator, thin and white, and turned to the woman standing behind him. They spoke quickly in Swahili. She looked at Dan, at Jennifer and back to their interpreter.

The woman was dark brown, missing two front teeth and had a deep, crevice-like scar in her chin that vibrated unpleasantly when she spoke. Dan thought she looked like a bird of prey.

The interpreter tapped away on the calculator, showed it to Dan (320), then said, “Three hundred and twenty dollars, U.S.” He stared at Dan’s neck with an air of indifference.

Dan froze, shocked at the audacity. His natural distaste for bargaining bubbled up. It wasn’t that he couldn’t bargain with the best of them, he told himself. It was just that he was wealthy and haggling seemed common, even vulgar. Why should he waste his time, he thought. He did his best to avoid the truth, that he hated conflict. And more than hating conflict he hated losing, especially when he was at such an obvious disadvantage. But he did his best to put all that aside, to push back on his first instinct which was to pay immediately. Instead, he turned and gently pulled Jennifer away by the elbow.

“What did he say?” she asked in a hushed voice.

“They want three hundred and twenty dollars.”

“What?” she asked, frowning. “You can’t be serious!”

“Yeah,” he said, nodding his head. He thought of the chieftain who greeted them an hour ago. The man was about fifty, and smiled constantly. With the smoothness of a used car salesman, he informed them of the fee for visiting their village. “Forty dollars per person,” he told them, “but you are in luck! With the family discount it is only one hundred and fifty dollars!” Dan had hesitated for a second and then paid.

“So, I have about three hundred and fifty left,” he said, looking at the ground.

“That old shark must’ve seen how much you had when you paid him. It can’t be a coincidence they’re charging us basically everything we’ve got.” Jennifer spoke rapidly while pulling her mouse brown hair into a tight ponytail. “They’re trying to cheat us.”

Dan pursed his lips and shook his head slowly from side to side. “What do you think we should do?”

Jennifer glanced over at the gap tooth woman; their eyes locked immediately. The woman was watching them closely from behind a furrowed brow, hawk-like greed painted on her face.

“Well, I want the bracelet but I don’t like that woman. I think you should bargain with them. Isn’t that what it said in the guidebook? Always bargain? They won’t respect us if we don’t.”

Dan glanced at her, then down at the ground and said, “Yeah, you’re right. It’s funny, back home we’d spend three hundred dollars on dinner and not think about it. But somehow here, with all this poverty it feels, I don’t know, wrong.”

Jennifer placed a hand on his arm and said, “Give’em hell, Babe. I’ll wait in the truck with the girls.”

Dan turned back to the vendor. Two other women had joined the man behind the table, presumably the other crafters of the items. The three women had shaved heads, like all the women in the village. Shaved heads were easier to maintain then a full head of hair. The young girls in the village had stared at Lily and Samantha’s wavy brown locks with open envy.

Dan adjusted his wire rim glasses and said, “I was really hoping to spend about fifty dollars for the bracelet and toys.”

The man looked at him, frowned and turned to speak with Gap Tooth. She gabbled quickly, eyes darting from the trinkets to Dan and back.

The man tapped on his calculator. “Three hundred and twenty dollars,” he said, showing Dan the calculator. “That is a good price. You can’t find craftsmanship like this in the States.”

“Maybe not, but when we get back to Nairobi, I bet we can find another Masai market. I’m sure we’ll get a better price there.” Dan looked away then said, “But since I’m already here I’ll give you sixty dollars.”

“Please, sir, we’re talking about hand crafted goods made by these very women.” He swept his hand backward without turning around. "Surely you can spare three hundred dollars to help them?”

Leng beeped the horn. “Come, Mzunga, we leave. Sun going down.”

Dan and Jennifer had just finished two weeks serving at Tenwek Hospital, two hours outside the Masai Mara Game Reserve. The attending physicians were white Americans, all either short-term or long-term missionaries. The resident physicians and medical students were Kenyan. Mzunga meant foreigner and was mostly a sign of respect.

The man behind the table said, “Ah, you are mzunga doctor from Tenwek, yes?”

Dan nodded.

“You are a Christian doctor, yes?”

Dan nodded again.

“Remember Deuteronomy 15:11 “Therefore I command you; you shall open wide your hand to the poor.” Please, as a Christian, have mercy on these poor women.”

Dan smirked and rubbed his chin with his thumb. “Good point, but let’s not forget Ephesians 5:6 “Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient.”

The man stared at him without responding.

Leng had exited the truck and now stood next to Dan. He said, “Please, Mzunga, sunset at 6:40. Safari lodge forty minutes away.”

Dan looked at his watch, 6:15 pm. They were on safari for a week following their time at the hospital. He looked at the man behind the table, “Listen, I have to go. I’ll give you eighty dollars, that’s the best I can do.”

The man turned to Gap Tooth, spoke quickly and tapped on his calculator. Turning back he said, “Two hundred eighty dollars.”

“Dan is everything okay?” asked Jennifer. Turning to the truck he saw Jennifer make a face as if to say just pay them. The girls stared wide-eyed, looking anxious. They weren’t sure what was happening, but somehow they knew their toys were at risk.

Dan had an inspiration. He pulled out his wallet and removed a crisp new hundred-dollar bill. Pinching the short end between his index finger and thumb he held the bill vertically. The man and Gap Tooth watched closely. “I’ll give you a hundred dollars for the stuff. That’s it. We have to go, so, take it or leave it.”

The man turned to Gap Tooth, worked the calculator and said, “Two hundred ten dollars. I can’t go lower, I’m sorry. Please, you’re not really going to take the toys from your children, are you?” He nodded toward the truck.

Dan wasn’t sure what he was prepared to do. The last statement hung in the air as tension slowly built. He suddenly had an uneasy feeling he might lose. Leng, back in the driver’s seat, beeped the horn. Dan could see the sun edging closer to the horizon. Far away to the east hazy clouds hung across the tops of Ngama Hills. The hum of insects rose and fell from the nearby grassland.

He turned away from the table and toward the truck. “I’m sorry kids, but they won’t sell us their stuff. So come on, bring it out,” he said. “Stop that, Samantha, we don’t have time to waste. Leng says we have to go.” He waved his arm vigorously. “Come on, hurry! You too, Jennifer, let’s go, Honey.”

Behind him he could hear the low mumble of voices then tapping on the calculator.

“Jennifer, please. Take them off your lap and get out here. Come on, chop, chop, we’ve got to go,” he said. “Lilly stop crying, now, come on.” He clapped his hands.

“Mzunga, I think I’ve found a way to make this work. See.” He held up the calculator, it read 100. Behind him Gap Tooth stared at Dan. She looked old and sad and angry. She was angry. The other two women stood motionless in silent disapprobation.

Dan handed him the hundred dollar bill, thanked him, and jumped onto the truck. Leng fired up the engine and they started home.

“Mzunga, you did good,” said Leng. “Not many foreigners get good deal from Masai.”

Dan sat back on the stiff leather seat, shoulders slumped, totally exhausted. He pulled a bottle of water from the cooler and drank half of it in a couple gulps.

“You okay, Babe?” asked Jennifer.

Dan wiped his brow with the sweaty side of the bottle. “I don’t know,” he said, “but that sucked.”

The Land Rover rumbled over a bumpy dirt road as warm twilight fell on the savannah. Leng turned left and startled a secretarybird which scampered into the brush. As the first few stars peaked overhead the family settled in, looking forward to a hot meal. Lily pointed at a group of elephants walking end to end, disappearing from the grassland into a lush green forest.