This blog is a very helpful "how to" instructional post about how to buy a goat in Rwanda.*
*This comes from personal experience and the pictures below are in fact real.
1.) First off, one must decide that they want to purchase a goat and why. For my teammate Aimee, buying a goat started off as a joke but partly through the month we learned that our host would love to raise some kids (kids referring to the goats). Quickly this little pun became real life.
2.) Next, our host; Moses (a local Rwandan) took us to the Rwandan market near by. The market was in his words "down the hill" which ended up being a couple miles away. It was a beautiful walk though!
3.) After getting to the mini field of goats we had to act confident that we really knew what we were doing when purchasing goats. Unfortunately Muzungus (white people) don't come to the market to buy goats very often so they could tell we weren't very educated in the area of goats. Luckily Moses knew what to look for when looking for the prime baby goats.
4.) Once Moses had decided on the 3 goats he debated prices with the goat sellers and got a solid price for 3. It is very helpful to have a local Rwandan with you because when the goat sellers try to double the price since we were white, Moses got the price back down to a reasonable price for goats. Apparently the going price for goats in Rwanda is $18.33 per goat, so the total price paid for 3 goats was $55.00.
5.) Once we finally purchased the goats, we got new rope for them and then took the trek all the way back home. You can imagine the glances we got from the local as we walked our new family members home. 🙂
