Dear reader,
Thank you for showing interest in How to Sells Eggs: A 10 Step Guide. I can
promise that this will not only be a fascinating read, but will also serve as
an invaluable resource if you ever find yourself in Madagascar selling eggs.
Due to the character limit of this blog post, I will not be giving you any
firsthand knowledge or advice on how to sell eggs in other countries besides
Madagascar, but be on the lookout for my full-length book, How to Sell Eggs: The Eggs-haustive Guide to Egg Selling Worldwide,
which will soon be available in the instructional section of yourlocal
bookstore as well as in Targets everywhere.
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| The Egg-Mobile |
Just like any other reputable author, I
will take a brief moment to speak about my eggs-perience in my field of eggs-pertise.
One day every week (usually Tuesdays) I accompany 1-2 fellow farm workers on a
voyage of epic proportions to one of the two nearest banking towns to mivarotraatody (sell eggs). The term
“selling eggs” is slightly misleading, because what we do on these excursions
can be better described as egg distribution/delivery. We drive the Egg-Mobile
all around town, stopping at roadside stands, small eateries, and personal
domiciles to sell large quantities of eggs that are then resold to the general
public. From these trips I have learned the tips and tricks necessary to a
successful day of egg selling and have compiled them into this convenient 10-step
guide. Enjoy.
1. Keep
arms and legs inside the vehicle at all time
The Egg-Mobile is a large vehicle and the
streets of Madagascar can frequently be narrow and/or crowded with pedestrians.
If you have a habit of sticking your arm out of the window, you might be
surprised when your hand scrapes against assorted vegetation, passing
rickshaws, and cows.
2. Get
ready to push
When selling eggs in coastal regions you
can expect to be driving on a handful of exceptionally sandy roads. Large egg
vans fully loaded down with 3,000 eggs typically don’t bode well in these
conditions, so get ready to push, pull, and dig the Egg-Mobile out of any sandy
situations.
3. Know
your limits
Before transferring purchased eggs from the
farm’s trays to the customer’s preferred egg receptacle (e.g. baskets,
cardboard boxes, desk drawers, mountains of rice), make sure to realize how
many eggs you can safely hold in your hands at one time. Just because you can hold four eggs in each hand does not mean that you
should. Here is a good scale of a beginner’s egg transfer limit: 1-Way to be safe, but I think you can do better. 2-One in each hand. Not bad. 3-Look at you! Keep up the good work. 4-Efficient. Relatively safe. You nailed it. 5-Doable, but make sure to take it slow. 6-Don’t get too confident. 7-You should
have stopped a while ago. 8-Now you’re just
asking for scrambled eggs. Stop.
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| The inside of the Egg-Mobile |
4. Don’t
drop ‘em!
This one is fairly self-explanatory.
5. Hold
on tight
Some of the roads that you will be driving
on will have holes with depth and width only comparable to that of the Grand
Canyon. Driving over them is neither beneficial for the integrity of the eggs
nor your own comfort. It is not uncommon for there to be a few egg casualties
and for you to suffer neck strain from movements that look like you are
imitating a scene from A Night at the Roxbury or a bobble head in an
earthquake. To avoid any long-term injuries, hold on tight.
6. Don’t
forget the milk
Chances are that if you are selling eggs, you
are probably also hauling around nearly 40 liters of ronono (roo-noo-noo), fresh out of the udder that morning. Make
sure to ask your customers if they want a liter of the best milk in all of
Madagascar.
7. The
customer is not always right (you break it, you buy it)
“Sorry ma’am, but you cannot return the box
of 100 eggs that you just dropped down the hillside.”
8. No
lollygagging
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| A tray of farm-fresh eggs |
You are on a tight schedule so don’t goof
around. If you are taking too long to purchase mofoakondro(fried breaded bananas) from the kind old lady on the
side of the road, the Egg-Mobile will leave without you.
9. Learn
the Malagasy word for “hardboiled”
When a man asks if the egg you handed him was nangotraka, but you don’t know enough
Malagasy to realize that nangotraka means
boiled, don’t just nod your head and
smile. If you do, everyone will be unfortunately surprised shortly thereafter
when he tries to eat it.
10. Take
it all in
The most valuable tip I can give anyone who
finds her/himself selling eggs in Madagascar is to enjoy every second of the
wacky experience. Some of my fondest (and strangest) memories and conversations
in this country have taken place over the exchange of eggs. It’s for this
reason that I believe that one of the best ways to see Madagascar and its
beautiful people is through the window of the Egg-Mobile. As long as you keep
your eyes open, this place will never cease to surprise and amaze you.
