Today I had no exams to proctor, so I amused myself at home for a while. In the afternoon, Laura and I decided to go into town to see if we could have some dresses made from the cloth we had bought. I’d also had the idea for some time that I’d like to repair a pair of leather sandals Peggy handed down to me. I’d heard rumors that there is a man who comes to school sometimes to repair shoes, but so far, I hadn’t seen him. Just outside the gate on the way to town, there he was, sitting under a tree with a big canvas needle and an entourage of three young ladies getting shoes repaired. I pulled my shoes out of my bag and commenced to embarrass myself awkwardly trying to understand the price he was asking. I have learned my Kinyarwanda numbers up to ten, but gatatu (3), gatanu (5), and gatandatu (6) are easily confused in my head. Laura came to the rescue. He had said gatatu, three. Three thousand francs, around $5 wasn’t super cheap, but it was definitely less than I would have paid for new shoes. I told him I’d be back, and we walked away. At the end of the lane I reconsidered and realized we might be gone too long: we should leave the money with the guard at the gate to give to the cobbler when he’d finished. Luckily, he was pretty smart and understood what I wanted him to do, despite my lack of linguistic ability. [I guess all that practice with pantomiming and mindreading in Cranium paid off—right Rachel? (and Rachael and David) Flying butt-dresses?] So I handed the guard my trois mille, and he called something over to the cobbler. It turned out, to my great embarrassment, that he was asking for 300 francs, not 3000. I corrected the amount I had given the guard, but as we walked away, I suddenly wanted to cry. I couldn’t believe how cheap this service was. I paid about $.50 to a skilled laborer for his time, materials, expertise, and door-to-door service. And I am so rich that I was willing to pay ten times the amount he asked. Both of those things upset me. Yes, the cost of living is less expensive here than at home. But 300 francs still doesn’t get you very far. It is enough to buy a pound of tomatoes, a coke, or a third of a loaf of bread. I don’t know how this man supports his family with such a low value for his skill. Laura tried to help me put it in perspective a little. Many people here rely on subsistence agriculture. So, although 300 francs doesn’t buy much at the market, he might not need to buy much if he has a bunch of avocado and banana trees at home. According to actual (not theoretical) economics, the price of something is determined by the relationship between supply and demand. If the cobbler couldn’t make a living cobbling, he probably wouldn’t be doing it. Anyway, I still feel a little sick over it. He did a really nice job on the shoes, with some skillful stitching and gluing, and I was really pleased to be able to get them repaired--something that warms every fiber of my sustainability-loving soul, yet would probably be cost preventative at home.
On the dressmaking front, we were escorted from one tailor shop to another, a little shop with maybe five or six sewing machines behind the counter and four people busy at work. There was room to walk between the sewing machines, but not much extra. Behind them on the main wall was a rack of wooden dowels where lots of colorful fabrics were draped, creating a very lively backdrop. We handed the woman our fabrics and my drawing and Laura’s printout of the design. There was some more gesturing and resorting to French, but I knew I was I business when she pulled out the tape measure. She said our dresses would be done next Wednesday (or so Laura tells me), so we’ll just see!
In other news, our little household was surprised Wednesday morning with the news that later in the day we would be having a new housemate, “a girl” who was coming for a month. Oh, good to know. Antoinette turned out to be a young Rwandan woman (here, she’ll be considered a “girl” until she gets married) who is here working with Sr. Constance, the bursar, on matters of finance and accounting. She speaks very little English and seems shy anyway. I’m happy that Providence will have someone to talk to.
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