Central Market

While staying in Arusha, we buy our produce at this huge outside market, called Central Market. Since we cannot speak swahili, and we obviously are foreigners, people will charge us different prices, often double, sometimes even quadruple what they would charge the locals. One woman tried to sell us an avocado for 1000 shillings, when the fair price is about 300 shillings--of course, 1500 shillings is a dollar, so either way it is quite cheap. The avocadoes are enormous here, and one avocado, one tomato, an onion, salt, and a bag of rolls can feed 3 people for dinner.

A woman from my office who is Tanzanian went with us to the market so that we could get an idea of what prices should be. The people here are really kind (unless they are trying to sell you something). Before coming to Arusha, I had read many things about the city. I read that it was one of the 10 worst cities in the world from the lonely planet forum (or at least, one of the 10 cities that really failed to meet people's expectations). In that sense, yes, Arusha is small, there are lots of people who will heckle you in the street--we will have people follow us for blocks just to pester us to buy a painting. For me, it was quite frightening at first, because they would not stop following you until you got into a cab and drove away. Now that I have been here longer, people seldom do that to me, since they know by now that I am not actually a tourist. Although, a few will still approach me, and make me promise that when I do buy (they assume that we will all buy at least one painting before we leave), I will buy from them.

Since I am Chinese, I think they do charge me somewhat lower prices than they would charge a white person. Also, I think I have an easier time haggling, maybe because they think Chinese people are also poor? They do however, call everyone a mzungu, regardless of race (I will get called China as well). Mzungu just means foreigner, and some people get very offended that people keep calling them that. It doesn't really bother me, I mean, that is what I am, right? I think I'd get offended if I was a native Tanzanian, and people still called me mzungu. If anything, it's kind of nice that all foreigners are mzungus, regardless of skin color. Some people ask me if I get annoyed that people point at me and say China! China! or Konnichiwa or Ni Hao or Anyung, etc. It really depends on my mood. I do not get angry, because I do think the people have good intentions--many of them didn't have a very good education, so I don't think we can blame them for not realizing that China, Korea and Japan are 3 different countries. Most people do not have access to the internet, newspapers, etc. I don't think you can get offended at people for things they cannot control, and for many of these people, a good education is simply not in their range of opportunities. So no, I do not get angry, but depending on how tired I am, I will try to explain to people, etc., so in the future they can keep in mind that there is more than one country in East Asia. While the majority of the population is quite poor, there are also many very educated Tanzanians, who have finished university (and know that China, Korea and Japan are different, among other things); many work at the UN. I have had some very interesting discussions with those people, one about China's increasng presence in Africa. A Tanzanian man was telling me that the Chinese are taking over Tanzania (economically), controlling it, and getting rich while the locals still remain poor. It is a topic that I plan to look into, in more detail.