June 01, 2007
On assignment, we often have enough time to browse in a local shop or grocery store. his it not only just because we’ve finished taking our photos and doing interviews early…most times it’s because we end up going somewhere for a story only to find that we’re in the wrong place altogether.
For some reason, the drivers at the New Times sometimes don’t have cellphones. So, last week, for example, we went to the Serena Hotel expecting to report on the last day of an international business conference, and we found that only the promotional booths and gift shops were open. We had to call the New Times and let them know to inform the driver, who’d just left, to come back as soon as he got there. We had about an hour of browsing African art in the shops.
This brings me to my story about yesterday. Kate, Gertrude and I went to a hotel to write a story on waitresses being trained in a new hotel (a business story indeed). At first we ended up at the wrong hotel. I wasn’t surprised somehow. Luckily the driver didn’t get too far and had a cellphone this time.
We made it to the real location, having missed the opening ceremony. We got our photos and interviews. Then we had time to kill. A nearby store was the perfect time killer. I bought cookies and a chocolate bar that had sugar and hydrogenated vegetable oil as its first two ingredients.
The best part of the trip was finding the choicely worded Benign Girl toy cellphone (do we know in Rwanda that cellphones give you brain tumors?) and the scary as hell Cornflakes box.
The store clerk asked me for money for taking photos of both. I explained that we were journalists with the New Times and that we should be allowed to take photos. She wasn’t buying my reasoning (neither was I in this situation!), so I quickly switched to bargain mode: “Maybe I just won’t buy these cookies and chocolate bar in my hands. Do you want me to buy these?” I stayed smiling and friendly the whole time. It seems to be the best technique.
In the end, I paid no money for the photos, and ended up with a horrible chocolate bar and strawberry icing cookies.
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