Haggling the Way to Virtue

Discomfort is avoided like the plague in our country but is actually a blessing. It visits us whenever patterns are broken or norms get uprooted, makes us squirm but also forces us to reassess. It can bring the invisible into plain view. It can take us to the place where insight happens to reside, where wisdom usually hangs out.

Many if not most Americans find haggling over the price of goods or services uncomfortable. We like price tags. Tell us what it costs, let us decide whether we want to take it or leave it. Much of the rest of the world is into bargaining. In a country like Tanzania, and everywhere else I’ve been on the African continent, dickering is a marketplace ritual, a national pastime.

Here, we barely tolerate offers and counteroffers for big purchases like vehicles and houses, finding these rare negotiations acutely stressful. In Tanzania, the price of everything from a piece of fruit to the smallest carved ornament is negotiable. There, people revel in the process, find joy in it, seem to regard it as instrumental to social bonding.

A few small purchases during my recent visit brought me to that place where insight resides. Our culture is highly transactional, theirs is just as highly relational. A preordained price might have lowered my stress level but for them would have drained our interaction of its most valued purpose, the relationship building.

Then the invisible came into plain view. In Tanzania, as in Mali where I lived for two years, negotiated purchase prices are clearly based on ability to pay. Those with more are expected to pay more. When I say expected, I do not mean it’s recommended or strongly advised. I mean there’s an agreed-upon social obligation for those who can afford to pay more to do so.

Tanzania has a free market economy. It’s not the government that engineers this redistribution of income, the ethic of sharing the wealth is a natural byproduct of the culture. When my travel party shared a meal with a Tanzanian man, I asked him if tipping is customary. His initial answer was squishy, leaving me uncertain whether it was standard practice or not. I tried reframing my question, asking if there’s a percentage of the bill that is an acceptable tip. He looked at me like I was from Mars.

“You can leave a tip if you want, it’s your choice,” he said.

“How much?” I asked. A look of utter bewilderment again crossed his face. “What is a good amount?” I added in hopes of clarifying my query.

“As much as you can,” he answered matter-of-factly.

I told him there are parameters for tipping in our country—at least 15% to 20% of the bill, a little more if the service is especially good—that most everyone follows. He was dumbstruck. Seeing him struggle to wrap his head around this alien concept, I was prepared to drop the subject.

After quite a pause, he spoke up.

“You mean everyone gives the same amount no matter how much you have?”

I nodded, and could quickly tell he thought it bizarre.

“Here, you don’t leave any tip if you do not have much, but if you have a lot to give, you give a lot, as much as you are able.”

Such is the rule in this place where hospitality is freely offered, generosity is constrained only by means, and sharing is a duty. There’s always been ambivalence and uneasiness with these habits in American culture, but now more than ever the prevailing mood in our society has us acting like hospitality, generosity and sharing are social ills. They are not. They are among the greatest virtues.