meat on a stick and three tongues

The other night after sitting around enjoying a few drinks with Ade, the Soft Power Education group and our South African friend, Johann we decided it was getting late and it was time to head out.  Some of the others stayed on at Traveler’s Corner for a few more, but Ade, Johann and I headed back to the hotel.  There was a man on the corner selling meat on a stick.  He told us that a stick of goat meat was 500/= and that the chicken on a stick was 1500/=.  Johann was very convinced that the goat should be 200-300/= and the chicken should be 500/=.  So here we were arguing with the meat stand man about what it should cost.  Well, not arguing in an angry way, it was much more of an animated discussion where all the locals kept laughing at us. Ade was arguing in Swahili, Johann in Afrikaans, and me in Runyoro.  I kept asking “Habwaki okunseera?” (Why are you overcharging me?)… Unfortunately I don’t know enough of the language to make much of the rational given. When it boiled down to it we are pretty sure it was mazungu tax and nothing more.  So we left without chicken and that only left me craving chicken on a stick for the next five days.