After two days of traveling on planes and going through airports, we finally made it to Nairobi on June 9th, my birthday. Before getting on a 13 hour bus ride to Mpeketoni, we were able to go out and explore downtown Nairobi. As we set out for our adventure, we exchanged our American dollars into shillings and set out to find the marketplace in the middle of downtown. As we were moving forward, deeper into the middle of downtown, this man approached us asking us if we were looking for the marketplace, (knowing that we were tourists because we were the only light colored skin for miles). Being friendly we said yes and the man offered to take us to the best part of the market. We all agreed and started following him. After walking for about ten minutes following the same guy, we noticed we were passing store after store and we knew this was the marketplace. The guy kept on walking past all these stores and pretty soon all of us were getting kind of worried of where this man might be taking 5 girls and only one guy. Finally, we approached this tiny shop in between these two stores. It was a narrow shop only about 15 feet wide and was packed with item to sell all along the walls and tables. When we walked in 6 men swarmed us wanting us to come and look at all their things. They showed us earrings, placed bracelets on our wrist, gave us platters to hold, and showed us these canvases. With all of them surrounding, handing us different objects and telling us how this was going to provide for their family tonight it was hard to say no to everything. So finally I gave into purchasing a pair of earrings, four bracelets and a canvas thing. We I asked the man who was helping me and my teammate Melissa how much it was for these things, he took me into this back corner where no one could hear or see us. At this point I was kind of freaking out because we had no idea what their intentions were going to be. Then the man said that since we were students they were going to give us a “deal” and that no one was suppose to know about our deal. He said that we could get everything in our hand for 8000 shillings. Not really knowing the currency, I thought it was a pretty good price. Then Melissa remembered from the bank that 8000 shillings was 100 American dollars. That price was outrageous, so we tried negotiating the prices, and finally after ten minutes of not really knowing the currency and getting frustrated in this small corner with these men we gave into giving them 5000 shillings. At the time we didn’t really think it was that bad of a deal until we all were finished buying our items and found out that 5000 shillings was around 60 bucks. When we figured this out we were all annoyed and frustrated that we could have gotten all these things for fewer than 1000 shillings (12 American dollars). We were all so pissed that we just wanted to head back to the hostel where we were staying, so we couldn’t be taken advantage of anymore. Looking back it was a good lesson to learn because now we know that before you head out into a foreign country you should know the difference in the currency. So for my 19th birthday, I spent over 60 bucks on a canvas for my little sister, four bracelets and a pair of earrings for my mom, but just being in Africa on my birthday was truly something I will never forget.
