Arusha has a few shops such as we
know them at home, most located on the main drag, Sokoine, named after a former
Prime Minister of Tanzania who died in a car accident in 1984 under mysterious
circumstances. I never learned the details, but this little fact stuck with me
the entire year and always made my trip down this street seem slightly more
thrilling than all the rest.
The shops range in size
from a generous walk-in closet to about half the size of a typical gas-n-go
mart. Theresa, a teacher from Chicago and I find an iron at one of these stores
and then, armed with our buying guide, decide to head to the central vegetable
and fruit market
“The market,” four-square blocks
around, is where the real shopping is done in Arusha. Some vendors have stalls but most squat on
the ground with their produce in front of them. Every pile of green peppers,
tomatoes, carrots, pineapples and mangoes screams, “I’m mouth-watering fresh,
organic, bursting with flavor and vitamins, not to mention cheap. Buy me!”
It puts to shame our waxy, unripe, chemical-laden produce that’s picked
well before it’s ripe.
I buy an avocado, huge and
guacamole-ready, and a steal at thirteen cents.
After I hand the seller the money, the boy next to her offers me a
plastic bag. Thinking I’m in a giant
outdoor supermarket and given my experiences as a North American, naturally I
assume the bag is free. I quickly
learned that nothing is free here. The
kid chases us down the street asking for money.
I think he’s trying to charge me for the avocado again so I refuse to
pay him.
After we lose the plastic bag kid,
something I felt terrible about when I learn that the bags are fifty shillings
or about eight cents each (but not on the buying guide) we decide not to push
our luck and return home.
This is no simple task since, like
children allowed to cross the street for the first time without an adult, we are
attempting to take a daladala on our own, without Nancy’s help. We are
only a couple blocks from the daladala stand but have no way of knowing
this. We have a map with only the main streets named and I have no sense of
direction in this new town. Every side street looks identical—a few splashes of
red Coca-Cola signs on dark ramshackle wood storefronts leaning against
two-story buildings. Everywhere are rectangular institutional gray concrete
buildings with barred windows, the type that blighted towns across America in
the fifties and sixties, all covered in a thick layer of dust.
A woman selling bananas comes to
our rescue. She carries bunches of them in a sombrero-sized woven basket on her
head, perfectly balanced. Like Carmen Miranda on a catwalk, the market ladies
gracefully glide over the muddy, potholed streets of Arusha. She guides us
through the maze of unnamed streets for several minutes, chattering non-stop in
Swahili, oblivious to the kilos of produce on her head and the blank looks on
our faces. Since Theresa and I know the same ten words of Swahili, numbers one
through ten, not the most helpful words to know in times like these, I’m not
quite sure how we manage to communicate that we are lost and are looking for a daladala
to Sakina. At least we are able to express our thanks by buying some bananas
from her.
