Shillingapi

Hawwa Shillingford is on a mission to never ever get ripped off again. She has learnt to say how much in Swahili (Shillngapi?).

You see the thing is people here don’t realise that we are not locals. We walk around the streets and markets happily completely blended in inconspicuously. And then we open our mouths and it all goes to pots. What happens then is that the price of things gets quadrupled, sometimes even more than that. People here believe that western people are rolling in (and when you compare lifestyles I understand why). So naturally when they ask a horrendous price we will just pay up cuz we have the shillings. So we went to the market today and walked past this shop that had gorgeous African paintings. Hawwa went in.

Hawwa: “Shillingapi?”

Store worker: “Huh?”

Hawwa: “Shillingapi?”

Store worker nods his understanding. Me and Hawwa smile at each other with absolute glee, yesss we have passed as locals! The Store worker then sprouts out the price in Swahili. We haven’t studied numbers. Hawwa’s plan is flawed.

7ikmat el-post:

"The chief value of money lies in the fact that one lives in a world in which it is overestimated." - H. L. Mencken.