3 March - Trading & haggling

3 March

Chitimba

0 Miles

Steph:

It rained and stormed all night and our tent got wet. Boo. But by breakfast it had cleared up and after swimming in the lake, meeting the pet impala and its protective goat, we visited the wood carving market at the entrance of Chitimba Camp. It's all really beautiful and I want it all. They have all sorts of things; engraved boxes, masks, picture frames, figures of the animals, chairs, incredible tables and chests, etc. These guys are eager too. As soon as we stepped out they were all over us luring us to their stands and introducing themselves with names like Vegemite, Will Smith, Samsonite and just plain Tim. We went out already knowing that we wanted to get a "Bao" game set. I used to play a version of it with my brothers when we were little called Mankala. The rules are a bit different here. Tim offered to carve us one just the way we wanted and charged us 10,000MK (~$30usd). We agreed and I think he felt he was ripping us off slightly and threw in two personalized key chains for free. Haha! It's ok, the box turned out amazing and I think it was worth it.

Ishi told us that these guys also accept trades. She traded in a tshirt for a nice little mask. So we decided to try it. We'd already agreed that we were going to get rid of a bunch of stuff before going home and now that we were on the truck we can get something bigger. We wanted a Malawian Chair. I don't know if that's the official name for it but we saw them in Botswana and they called them that there, so that's what I'll go with. It's a really simple design; just two pieces of wood. One is the back and the other is the seat, kind of a stool actually. The backs of them are the incredible part. These guys carve the most intricate and beautiful designs on them and some get really creative. They're awesome and pricey. After a LOT of negotiating and going back and forth, we traded:

• 2 handle bar bags – still looked good after being manhandled 5 months
• 1 pair of nice, barely used water resistant Colombia pants
• 1 REI shirt
• 1 blinky bike light
• 1 journal, empty & nice
• 1 mechanical pencil – big, big hit
• 4 pairs of adidas socks – used but clean
• $3 usd

for a magnificent chair carved out of teak with the big 5 on it. It rocks! This was my first real haggling experience and I'm super excited. Now we just need to figure out how to get it home :) Sorry, don't have pictures, you'll see it at home.

Chitimba Beach!