Improving my skills on bargaining and setting boundaries

Rasmus and Jonas have arrived, two really nice guys and i sure enjoy the company! I picked them up yesterday at the bus station, the bus was supposed between 16.30-17.30, it arrived 18.10 or so, not too bad. It's surprising how fast one adapt to new situations, sure there are days when patience is lacking, but all in all, what can you do but accpet the situation? After negotiating about the price with a taxi driver who was totally trying to overcharge us, three ubrunis, who can blame him?! But no mister, i've been around, and i know it shouldn't cost more than 3 Cedis, not 5, and knowing we could easily find another taxi driver to take us to the hotel he finally agreed. I am getting good at bargaining! Even managed to get the guys a good deal at the hotel, no way they could have found this standard for that price. They had paid this amount for a youth hostel in Accra...
We decided to ask the hotel staff to find someone to take us to a cocoa farm, and splitting the costs. This is also what happened! At 8.45 the three of us got into a taxi, with a (for once sensible) driver and a guide and headed south. After about one hour we reached the first village. We met a family and the husband, a cocoa farmer who own his own land, showed us around the farm. We even used the machetes to help him clearing the ground. His comment was "the lady is very soft...", so i'd suggested i'd do children's work and pick up the cocoa fruit from the ground instead and he laughed! The guys did better, but i tried at least. I watched when he used a wooden stick with a hook at the end of it to get the ripe cocoa fruit down. We asked many questions and it surprised me how wiling he was to talk. I discovered that an anthropologist's work is not so easy... I have to keep a conversation going, writing it down while taking the most amazing pictures. It's hard work. Luckily i have some knowledge of the cocoa business, so all wasn't new to me. He even brought us to his children's scool, we met the teachers, collected some addresses and phone numbers, took lots of pictures...
We then went to a second cocoa farm! My lucky day. We strolled around on his land. This cocoa farmer had bought the land and the family, man, wife and their five children took care of it. The kids were quite greedy i have to say; after not succeding in me giving them a pen they turned to Rasmus and they convinced him to give them a pen (after he told them that no, you can not have my camera, i need it). It was all about "give me, i want"... When one of the girls was about to put her hand in my bag i had it with her and told her she had to calm down because i had to work. Jessica the hardass!
We went for a stroll through the village, with the wife of the cocoa farmer and our guide (and body guard according to himself). We visited the place where all the cocoa is being weighed, and packed in bags to be sent off to Takoradi, a city situated on the coast, then exported. In this tiny and extremely hot little room, maybe five-six square metres, we met the chief of the town. He is a cocoa farmer in his 60s (i'd guess) who owns his own land, a very nice and humble man. We then met a woman who i suspect is the chief's wife, because she was presented as an important person in the village and our guide even told me we should greet her, which we did. The driver had parked the car close by, we walk towards the car when i see that our guide put his arm around Jonas the photographer as if he wanted to say something in confidence to him. When i see Jonas fumbling with his wallet i confront him and he said the guide wanted money, so he could give some money to the people in the village. The guide runs off to change into smaller notes. I wonder why he turned to Jonas? Anyway, this behaviour is getting to me. I accept, and agree with giving some money to the wife of the cocoa farmer since she had been walking with us showing us her farm and the village. But i really don't see why our guide think it is suitable to hand out money to strangers? Maybe i will ask him the next time i see him, just to see what his answer is. We say goodbye to people and squeeze into the car, happy to be on the road and feel the breeze again!
The guide said he wanted to drive by Bekwai, his city, and leave some money to his wife and he want to show us his home. So we do. Then we continue and stop a while later by a place where the driver and the guide wanted to eat, he showed us to a house behind the food place, where it turns out his mother-in-law with the extended family is living. So after we had taken some pictures we sat on a wooden bench waiting for them to finish their lunch. We don't have to wait long before we were back on the road. Before approaching Kumasi the guide start asking about the payment, which was much higher than agreed on. I put my foot down because by now i had really had it. I said to him we had agreed on a price this morning, and we had paid for their lunch (which we all doubted they would have had to pay for since his inlaws were living right next to the place...) so i twisted his words and said we'll give you your requested price but we will deduct the 10 Cedis we already gave you for dinner (and anyhow, there is no way they would have paid 10 for that lunch). I don't know what was going through his head, but he accepted the money when we got out of the car and when i met him later that evening he smiled, he may not have been thrilled, but this man knew that the price he asked for wasn't right.
In the evening the guys went to a meeting while i stayed in my hotel room. When they came back we looked at all the pictures taken during the day and they will burn a back up cd with all the pics i have taken so far! That's a relief.
I got a lot of data this day and i was really happy that we went out the three of us. It's interesting to see how different it is to not travel alone; more peaceful. And it's cheaper too:)
I made another deal with the hotel i'm staying at today, i'll stay there until Wednesday morning when i'll go south. Probably south east to a cocoa farm which is open to the public, it has the first cocoa plant that was brought to Ghana by a betravelled man named Tetteh Quarshie. I would also like to visit some water falls in the region that is said to beautiful as well as a botanical garden. That's the plan.