My First Bartering Experience

Now you see this story begins in Dahab and ends in Dahab, also. I had been doing a considerable amount of swimming in the Red Sea and was getting tired of slipping into my cold wet athletic shorts every time that I was inclined to go and take a nice salty dip. It also turned out that I would be wearing my shorts up Mt. Sinai and I didn't want to be wet on the way up the mountain, so I decided that I would go and buy a pair of swimming trunks because I didn't bring any with me to Egypt. I know what you're thinking, "why didn't you bring a swimming suit?!? You're always supposed to bring a swimming suit with you when you travel." You have a very valid point and I can't deny that it is unrefutable. Anyways, back to the story of me bartering.

I stirred from my comfortable pile of pillows after a nice long reading session of "The Once and Future King" and decided my moment of glory was approaching. The time had come for me to go out and haggle with the locals for some swimming trunks. I concluded that the best plan of action would be to go and look at a pair of shorts that I had absolutely no interest in and then see how low I could bring the seller down. I went into the first store and found a pair of shorts that looked like they would fall apart as soon as I left the store and started the vicious process of bartering. He said up front that he wanted 100 pounds, I replied with a "La, ashreen"(No, 10). He looked at me laughed and then replied in English that he would settle for no less than 40. I said that I would compromise and meet him at 20. He said 25 and then I told him I'd think about it because I would like to see what the other shops had to offer. He made an offer for 15, but I said I had to think about it and moved on.

The guy was a friendly person and I almost felt guilty for leaving the shop because he had wanted to sell to me, but I had to keep in mind that he was more than willing to rip me off. He had attempted to sell me shorts that were worth no more than 2 pounds for 100 pounds, ridiculous! The haggling process is a 'dog-eat-dog' scenario mixed with cunning and manipulation. It's making me sick as I sit here writing this.

I learned an important lesson from this experience. The process of naming prices and talking it out isn't a personal interaction, it is a game and I think the salesmen look at it like that, also. They use coercive tricks to make you feel that you are in control. They will pull the classic handshake with the angling their hand on top of yours, the two handed grasp versus your one with a pulling you where they want you to go, the pushing you by the small of your back, or the "Please, take a seat(as they push you down into a low level chair)" while they speak to you from an elevated position to make you think, on a subconscience level, that they're in control. They do all of this with a grin and are very friendly while they do it.

I have mixed feelings about these guys. They are doing their best to make it in a world where poverty is on such a large scale that I can understand them perfectly. You walk a kilometer along the beach towards the east and suddenly the tourist trap turns into a beach with shacks. They are desperate to make a secure lifestyle for themselves, so can they really be blamed? The thing that gets me about it is that the game of haggling, in Egypt, is filled with so much deception and manipulation. Nobody wants to be manipulated, but I really can't blame them a bit for allowing themselves to utilize these tools to get money from, for the most part, 'stupid tourists'. It brings up an important question for me to answer for myself, does bad circumstance justify succumbing to dishonesty? I don't think it does because it crosses a line that isn't very easily defined. Where do you cease the justification and decide that 'the buck stops here'? I'm not in their shoes and haven't lived a day in their lives, so I have no idea how it is for them, but for me- I would like to make that choice for myself.

To conclude the story, I ended up buying a pair of fake Puma shorts from one of my grinning sadekoks (friends) for 40 pounds. He started the price at 250 and after a long battle, we agreed on 40. I am enjoying the shorts, accept I put them in the laundry and turned a white T-shirt of mine pink, but such is life! Life is good and God is good.