The Masaai Market

The Masaai Market is the ultimate tourist market is Arusha, quite distinct from the very authentic Central Market. It is fairly small, but densely packed with little stalls, each selling the exact same African kitsch: generic African jewelry, generic African masks, generic African carvings, and a lot of local art that largely consists of cartoony safari animals, or cartoony Masaai. It is horrible in its touristy-ness. That being said, a lot of the stuff is actually quite nice. If you took it away from its setting, away from the hundreds of identical objects that line the walls of these shops, its not hard to imagine most of it on sale at Pottery Barn or Pier 1. The biggest problem, though, is that as you walk from booth to booth, each with its own overly-friendly salesperson begging you to come in ‘just to look,’ it looses all of its fun. A third of the way through the market you have already seen everything (many times), encountered way too many friendly-but-pushy salespeople, and are exhausted.

Most of the carvings are made of ebony, and at a few of the booths you can actually see people carving it. It is an extremely heavy wood, the outside of which looks like any other tree. But about an inch or so into the trunk, the wood turns a deep black. This is the part of the tree that makes the beautiful carvings that fill the Masaai Market.

According to Pascal, most of people working in the stalls at the Masaai Market are not Masaai. However, in front of the stalls, there are large groups of Masaai women beading jewelry, bowls, and other little containers. But this is it – the rest are just regular Tanzanian shopkeepers.

There are no price tags in Arusha. You need to ask, and bargain, for everything. I’ve been told that roughly 40% of an asking price is fair. This formula seems to work in Arusha (I bought a beautiful set of ebony candlesticks 10,000 shillings – original price: 25,000 shillings). I tried the same formula in Zanzibar, and found that it didn’t work, and was even laughed out of a few places. I’m not sure if the mark-up is just that much bigger here in Arusha, or if there are simply so many tourists in Zanzibar that they don’t need to bargain so heavily.

I’m not a person who generally can, or that likes to, bargain for things. In my first attempt at bargaining in Africa, I picked out something and was told it cost 10,000 shillings. I told the woman I would give her 8,000 shillings. She said okay, but sadly, and I quickly realized that it was only a dollar or so. I then reverse-bargained, and said I would pay 10,000 (I know – but I’m supposed to be a lawyer…).

What I’ve found, though, is the pushier the salesperson, the more I don’t mind haggling. The strategy I have adopted, which I actually think is quite good, is to ask how much, then name the price I’m willing to pay, and if they don’t accept, just walk out of the shop. You can always go back, and right away you can tell how serious they were – if they run after you (which happens frequently), success! If they don’t, you were probably asking for too much of a discount, and you can re-evaluate your offer outside of the store. Win-win.