Oeps

I finally did what I was afraid of.

Haze asked me to bring home a couple of avocados for lunch. Not a big deal as on one of the side roads are some shops, and avocados are available most places. I went down the road in the big embassy car. By the way the embassy car has a little flag up front, but this is covered by what we call a condom, so it looks like a little stick (could call it dildo, but that would be too many sex references in one sentence). So one of the first shops was a local lady with a bowl of about 20 avocados, bingo. I stopped the car got out and asked in my best French how much they were. The lady made the universal sign of a fist. Luckily I came across this sign before when something cost 2,500 RWF, the signs used then were two fingers and a fist. I know this must sound wrong to the English giving somebody first two fingers and then a fist, but I can assure you this was a friendly man and he did mean 2,500 RWF. So I assumed the lady wanted 500 RWF for a avocado. So I picked up two nice avocados, gave the lady 1.000 RWF (GBP 1, EUR 1,35, USD 2) and left. I did get some looks, but a muzungu in this kind of street always gets looks. Going home I thought, this might be a bit much but I am not sure.

At home I told this to Haze and she had to laugh, the sign apparently means a half, or instead five, but can mean half of 1.000 or, in this case, half of 100. So I paid the lady her daily salary for two avocados, where I could have gotten the lot.

I am glad my money went to a lady on the street and not to a big store, and this quality would not be available at 1.000 in The Netherlands, if available at all.