A Crazy Day in Kigali

Days in Kigali buying chicken food are never predictable. Sometimes we buy the things we need with ease and other times it’s a battle. The plan was to go on a Wednesday so I called the Monday before to check the prices of all the items. I wrote all those prices down, filled out a requisition, and got a check for all the ingredients. This sounds pretty easy right? All I need to do is take the money to the bank and then go to all those places and pay for the items…wrong…it was not nearly that simple.

I slept in Kigali the night before and then Salomon met me in Kigali the next day. I went to the bank and got the money…we were ready to begin. Our first stop was to buy indagara which is small fish from Tanzania. You can smell it from a mile away so we followed our noses. When we got there, I bargained hard for a better price. The price of indagara is very high these days which is raising the cost of the food. Finally I got a better price. We left it there and said we’d be back later to pick it up. Our next stop was the place where we get the majority of the ingredients. We arrived there and all of a sudden all the prices they told us from 2 days before were so much higher. This was the second time that they did this to us. I told them that they will lose our business because we need to find someone to rely on and that when we call we get the same price as when we arrive. The guy said well then go somewhere else…can’t you see what great customer service they have. I started to panic a little. I didn’t know of another place and I have 200 chickens to feed. We started asking around and finally someone pointed us in the right direction. Thank goodness the owner was there and agreed to give us good prices. He even promised to give us the price he tells us on the phone.

Before we could load, Salomon and I needed to find a truck. We arrived at the place with all the trucks and all the drivers there came running at me. They were pulling me in all directions trying to get me to use their truck. After a few minutes of being yelled at in Kinyarwanda and pulled around, I pointed at Salomon and said Salomon’s the boss! Everyone left me and attacked Salomon. I felt so relieved and a little sorry for him. Finally we had a truck! We went back to load up everything. They were missing one thing so we had to drive a little distance to find the last ingredient.

We went back to pick up the indagara and that’s when it got a little crazy. Everyone that I saw began demanding money from me. First the truck driver demanded more, saying that we didn’t agree on a fair price, then a man that was helping us asked for money after I already gave him some, and then the place for indagara wanted me to pay more. It was a little overwhelming all at once. There were even more instances of people asking and demanding money from me.

I decided that I need to learn how to say in Kinyarwanda, you’re taking money from orphan children!