Dar Es Salaam,
Tanzania
Friday, February 9, 2007
The quality of products and service in Africa have much to be desired. I've been talking with a few people and one has expressed that you are always being screwed in Africa. As a foreigner/traveler, you will always be over-paying. In addition, you get service that is half-assed. Things are dirty, not complete, and you get attitude from the service people. While it's understood that things are different over here, I also can't help, but notice this as well. On the beach in Zanzibar, we ran into many kids trying to sell us fruit. Instead of selling the fruit at reasonable prices, they charged an exhorbitant amount hoping that they'd run into a tourist or two who didn't care. Naturally, the Europeans, especially the package tourists from Italy, gave in and bought from the kids, but instead of 3000 TS (~$2.40 USD) for a pineapple, they could charge 1500 TS and have 2x or 3x as many sales. In their village, pineapples grow everywhere so it's free for them and they all have machetes, so it's not a problem at all about supply. It's hard to understand why things are this way, but I suspect it's a cultural thing and I imagine someone has tried and someone in the community has thwarted his/her entrepreneurial spirit...
There are many accidents in Kenya and Tanzania. I think most cars have to travel during the day and not at night so drivers tend to go faster and try to attempt to pass other cars more frequently. A slight mis-judgement and accidents happen and someone dies. Very tragic. I have seen some really banged up and messed up vehicles and I'm pretty sure the people did not survive those accidents.
