Numeracy, Chocolate and Cheese

In the market in Jerusalem, I was always impressed by the insanely quick yet accurate deducing of change by sellers. You give your veggies to be weight and within miliseconds you get the price and then the precise change so much quicker than a permanent store. After doing this for years I could figure out, pretty accurately, the price of the vegetables I bought simply by gauging the weight in my hands - it usually matched up to the price they gave me, and I would mentally gleefully squeal with excitement and mentally jump up and down when I was dead on. Based on this, I assume the price was pretty accurately and quickly deduced as well.

In Rwanda, I often stand there, hands on counter, for a minute or so, waiting to hear the price, as the store keeper counts, out loud, "one hundred," pointing to one item that is one hundred francs, "two hundred, three hundred, four hundred," pointing to another item that is three hundred francs, "five hundred" for another one-hundreder. It takes time, and sometimes they have to count again if they loose track. I have seen some need to write out seemingly simple arithmetic, such as dividing 1500 into three - something I assumed everyone did in your head.

Other times the prices seem a bit off from a marketing perspective, though there could actually be logic behind it. A 500 gram wheel of cheese cost 1,500 francs. I asked how much it would be if they cut it in half. They said 700 francs. You would think buying things less in bulk would make the price go up. I asked how much half of the half would be, and they said 300 francs. Perhaps people that want less can afford less, but I was tempted to ask for four halfs of cheese, and get a 300 franc discount. (I didn't. I didn't need 500 grams of cheese.) At another shop, 33 grams of chocolate cost 300 francs, but a 100 gram bar cost 1000 francs. Even at Bourbon, the swanky upscale expat location for real coffee, a grande cafe au lait, which is "freshly brewed Rwandan Coffee with steamed milk foam" costs 1,500 francs, yet a "freshly brewed Rwandan Coffee" grande is 1,200 and a separate order of "steamed milk" is 200, for a total of 1,400 francs. At least it was a few months ago - they raised the price of milk by 100 francs to make it the same. This is all being terribly nit-picky, I know - this happens in stores across all lands. But I see more of this than I did in Israel.

When asking small business owners what their profit and revenue are, I rarely get an answer. I am told the price they pay for food for themselves, their children, the store they run, rent for home and store and electricity - all in one figure, all mashed together. They know how much they spend a month, sort of, and maybe how much money in coins is found in their basket at the end of the day. Everyone, though, seems to pay the same 4, 000 monthly francs in taxes. "Is there some sort of flat tax in Rwanda?" I asked someone in Kigali - a university student in business with excellent numeracy. "No, if you do not make any profit, you are not supposed to pay taxes." I am not sure how true this is, but it could very well be that many small business owners simply end up paying a flat tax because they do not keep books. This is the price they pay for limited numeracy - a flat tax and never quite knowing if running the business makes sense.

Don't get me wrong - these aren't exactly the cream of the crop on the businesses world. Or even the average. The lady that told me the price of the cheese often falls asleep behind the register. Come to think of it, so does the lady who takes the longest in Rubona to give me a price. They are exhausted, perhaps. And in the better run businesses, you see the difference - prices are figured out faster and people know their revenue and profit. Sometimes siblings study accounting in high school while their sisters (usually sisters) run the shop. Kids are learning math at a fast pace, and I imagine, in another ten years, prices will makes sense, profits will be known, and taxes will be proportional to profits.

But for now, I stick to 300 francs chocolate bars and 1/4 of a wheel of cheese.