I just returned from my first trip to Africa. I went to Ghana. Before going to Ghana, I spoke to people who were there before, and the common theme was that I should haggle over prices. I don’t often listen to people’s advice even when I asked for it but if I do, I am likely to take to heart. That’s what happened with some of the advice about Ghana, especially the piece about haggling. I look that piece of advice to heart and started haggling early.
Early means before I got there. Even before I left for Ghana I started haggling for better, meaning lower, prices. I stayed at the Movenpick Hotel, but I had reservations at the Monticito Apartments and several other places. Having been told that I should haggle, I started with the hotels. I wanted to start with the airlines, but I was traveling on North American airlines not a Ghanian or African airline, so I thought that they may not understand the haggling thing. Surely, hotels situated in Ghana would understand that prices are negotiated or haggled over. After booking my stay, I called or emailed the hotels. What I was trying to achieve was a reduction in the nightly rate and my goal was to get a reduction of $20 USD per night. That amount of reduction would be meaningful to me. I might even stay an additional night. I could not get the Movenpick to counter-offer. None of the hotels that I booked seemed to understand that negotiating prices was part of doing business in Ghana.
My failure to get a lower rate from any of the hotels didn’t deter me. I still had not left for Ghana, but I knew I needed transportation. I was told that I should not try to drive myself. So, I opened a conversation with Afia Tours. I was attracted to Afia because I have a daughter whose name is Afia but that was not going to prevent me from haggling. Afia Tours provides group tours but if you wanted just a driver, they could provide a driver and car. The car and the driver were yours for the day. Their pricing was simple. If you were going to travel outside of Accra, the car and driver were $100 USD. For in Accra service, the car and driver were $70 USD. I asked Afia Tours if they can do car and driver for outside of Accra for $70 USD. That seemed like a reasonable place to start. I was thinking that they may reply with a ‘we can’t do $70 but we can do $85’ but instead they said “no”. This surprised me more than the refusal from the hotels. Afia Tours is local; Movenpick is a part to the Fairmount group of hotels, so I thought the Movenpick may have foreign masters.
By the time I have jumped through all the hoops to get to Ghana, I suspected that there may be something about the advice that I didn’t understand. If my haggling over the prices of my hotel and transportation had bear fruits, it would have been meaningful to me. Ghana was surprisingly more expensive than I expected, and I knew that before I left home. I booked my flights then found that the vaccines I needed would cost a $1,000 CAD. In addition, I had to pay for a visa and let’s not forget about the prices of covid tests. I did not consider haggling over any of those prices. My wife kept reminding me that this was the most expensive trip we have ever planned and started to refer to it as “money gaanah”. The last hurdle was the $150 USD for the covid test in the Ghanian airport. After that, I was in Africa! I was standing in my ancestral home. I actually made it back. I felt like shouting at the top of my lungs “AFRICA! I MADE IT HOME!”
The next morning was my first morning in Africa and I realized that I made a great decision in choosing to stay at the Movenpick because the room included breakfast. We have travelled and when we travel it is my job to get up and go out to find breakfast. When we are home my wife cooks but when we travel it is my job to figure out what we are going to have to eat. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to find a little breakfast cafe in Accra, so I was grateful that the Movenpick provided breakfast. After breakfast, we decided to go the Makola Market, but our Uber driver thought that we should start at the Art Cultural Center and then do the Makola Market. The Art Cultural Center is a tourist trap. It is the only place where I would say that you have to haggle, if you think that you are a good haggler. It does not matter what price you pay at the Art Cultural Center. If you did not divide the price by four, then you have overpaid because you can get the same thing in the Makola Market for a quarter of the price. The Art Cultural Center was the only place where the advice about haggling made sense. I haggled, I thought I got a reasonable reduction in the price, but I didn’t divide the price by four and paid 25%. I soon learnt that at the Art Cultural Center, I wasn’t a “brother by our only mother”, or “a returning son”, or even a good haggler, I was just a dumb tourist.
The next day, I was back to Afia Tours. I hired a car and driver for the trip to the Cape Coast Dungeons. I tried one more time to get a reduced price, but they kept on saying that they had to pay their driver. So, I agreed to the $100 USD, and I was picked up the 6:00 AM for the drive to Cape Coast. It was a long drive and it put me in a different mood, seeing the poverty and thinking about my ancestors being dragged that distance, fighting all that way and in chains. The trip to the coast took all day. We were back at the hotel at 9:00 PM. The dungeons had an impact on all of us. The next day we decided to stay around Accra and try to do something fun because we were traumatized by the dungeons. We went to the beach, but I caught myself thinking who in the world would drive from Accra to Cape Coast and back for a $100 USD. I was actually glad that Afia Tours didn’t meet me halfway. I paid for gas, and I tipped the driver. In all it came up to about a $150 USD. A couple of days later, Afia Tours provided another driver. This time I wanted to go to the Boti Falls. The twin falls that are so popular in pictures on the internet. The drive and distance were horrendous. It was dirt roads for 95% of the way. We drove through small villages and towns. The poverty in these places hit you in the face. It was the harmattan, so the trees were covered with red dust from the road. Wearing masks in those villages should be mandatory because I am certain that the people’s lungs are coated. But for three hours our drive weaved around potholes to get us to Boti Falls. Boti Falls wasn’t anything like the pictures on the internet. Those pictures were taken in the wet season. The Falls we saw were more like a heavy shower. We actually treated it like a shower. I don’t know how I feel about, Afia and Kofi, the twin Falls.
Boti Falls was the only place in Ghana where I felt that they were trying to rip me off. I did not get that feeling at the Art Cultural Centre. I don’t know if they were lying to me or if I was getting the dumb tourist treatment. I had a SLR camera, and they wanted me to pay 1,000 cedis to take pictures of the Falls. I can’t imagine that I am the only one who have shown up at Boti Falls with an SLR camera. Lots of the pictures on the internet look like they were taken with SLR cameras. If people were paying $160 USD to take pictures, it would have shown up in my research. It was so ridiculous that I did not even bother to haggle with him, I just chose not to take pictures. That was okay because I was still feeling the effects of the Cape Coast Dungeons. It had dampened by enthusiasm for taking pictures. The Falls were so lacklustre that they may have been trying to prevent pictures of them in the dry season from getting out.
I wasn’t having any luck with haggling. The Movenpick and the other hotels had ignored me or said no, the car company said no, and the Art Cultural Center had gotten more from me then they should have but I wasn’t done. My next stop was the Makola Market. I loved the place. I went there twice. It was just around the corner from the Movenpick. I would have gone more often but you cannot social distance at the Makola Market. I almost got a haircut but the barbers there square your hair the old fashion way. They use razors. In the Market my haggling success really increased. I was able to push down the price of everything I bought. I was on a role. At the Labadi Beach I was able to haggle lower prices. I took that success to Oxford Street and haggled over paintings, bags, jewelry and clothes. While I was doing all this haggling; I was wondering, what exactly was the difference. Why was I so successful at Makola and not at all at the Movenpick? Why were the people on Oxford Street or at Labadi Beach so willing to reduce their prices and my long stay at the Movenpick didn’t merit a discussion?
The economic answer, if you believe in economic theory, is that for the Movenpick demand matched supply and the price that the Movenpick was offering was the market clearing price. While on Oxford Street, at the Makola Market or at Labadi Beach supply was higher than demand, so the price had to be reduced to establish the market clearing price. Or maybe economic theory had nothing to do with it. Maybe it was about transferring value from the have nots to the haves, maybe it has to do with poverty. Maybe it was because Ghana is a Black people’s country, and people from down north believe that everyone there are thieves or dishonest in their business dealings. The basic assumption that haggling makes is that the person selling the product has over price it and has knowingly done so. That was not my experience.
In reality, it is about power. It is about control. The people from the down north have more power than any vendor on Oxford Street in Ghana. The reduction in prices I was able to achieve was not meaningful to me. The $3 to $5 CAD reduction was trivial. I spent $3 on Twizzler and $5 on lottery tickets. Things I consider a throwaway of money but to the people on Oxford Street, or at Makola that money is more meaningful. By the time I was leaving Ghana, I had unconsciously rejected the advice. I was behaving like I was shopping in Canada. I assumed the price was the price and simply asked myself, can I afford it. I paid a brother who told me that he is going to be a famous artist one day, 3,000 cedis for paintings because my wife like them and we could afford it. I think every African in the world should visit the ancestors but if you ask me about shopping, I will say don’t haggle. The only people you can get to reduce their prices are the ones who cannot afford it.