Market Days

Today I am going to tell you about market days here in Tanzania. All of the villages have their own designated market day. Nanja’s is Monday. So, every Monday when I am traveling to Losi to see the kids, I see people heading to Nanja market to buy and sell. It’s a pretty big market for the area as Nanja is a slightly bigger village than say, Losimingiori and surrounding areas. (Most of these pictures are from my visits to Nanja market over the years.) The village where I live, Kisongo, has its “official” market day on Wednesday, but it is a bigger village (more like a town), so there are market stalls set up along the main road every day of the week. Duka Bovu which is down the road a little way holds its market day on Thursday (I think…I’m pretty sure it isn’t Tuesday). And Makuyuni, which is past Losimingiori, is a really big market every Saturday. Of course, Arusha has a very, very large market every day of the week. Emmanuel and I went there a few weeks ago to buy the food supplies for our safari with the kids.

When I say that you can buy any and everything at these markets, I’m not kidding. There are legumes and beans, rice, fruits and vegetables of all kinds, spices, meat, eggs, beads and jewelry, cloth or clothing, cows/goats/sheep/donkeys, all kinds of drinks (both non-alcoholic and alcoholic), cleaning supplies…truly if you need it, you can most likely find it at the market. I always buy my fresh fruit and vegetables at the local market and most of my cleaning supplies, eggs, milk, and household supplies there also. Sometimes I shop at the village “mini-supermarket” (like for milk and cleaning supplies) and other times I go into Arusha or near Arusha and shop at the big supermarkets there for items that I can’t find as easily at the local market like “beauty” supplies. Just like in America, I spend wayyyy more at the big supermarkets than I do in the local markets. The other day I got potatoes, onions, a cucumber, mangoes, lettuce, and avocados all for under 10,000 tzs. which equates to under $5. When I go to the big supermarkets, it is always over 100,000 tzs. which is closer to $40. Enjoy your trip to the market with these pictures!