A Lesson in Banking

I've been to my local bank a fair few times since we arrived here... mostly not by choice. I've always stayed calm and the assistant manager and his colleague now know me by name and smile when I go in (I'm the crazy mzungu lady). It took 8 weeks (and three application forms) to get a cheque book... but it finally arrived, with a smile...and even an apology for making me wait so long.

Today, for the first time in my life, I haggled in a BANK! Haha! 

I needed to transfer a substantial amount of money from my US$ account into a Tanzanian shillings account. I wasn't happy with the exchange rate they were giving me so cheekily asked if they could do better. 

The assistant manager said "let me try". Was not expecting that! 

So he called head office and spoke to someone there, and got a better exchange rate. I pretended to be horrified that it was still so low so he tried again and came back with a better number. I smiled sweetly and said "I think you can do better than that" (soooo not me!)... so he ended up giving ME the phone and I spoke to the nice lady on the other end. 

I'm learning how things work here. Greetings are an extremely important part of Tanzanian culture. Community and people are number ONE. So I dove in... in my best Kiswahili.... good afternoon, how are you? etc etc... and then...

"PLEASE can you give me the best rate today?"
I did that bit in English!

She gave me a number, I kept asking for more, she gave me a better number, I kept asking.... and then eventually she stopped changing the number and I realised that was as far as she was going to go. I was on the phone for a good ten minutes!

The most shocking thing of all? The difference between the first rate and the final rate meant that I walked out $560 US DOLLARS better off!!!!! Insane. Imagine... I could have just walked in, none the wiser, and agreed to the first rate they gave me. I would not have known any different. Definitely keeping the staff at this bank on my side.

Getting more confident in my bartering skills here! Reminds me of the good old China days!! 

Just need to learn a few more numbers in Kiswahili.... getting there slowly but surely!