Maasai market

Every Saturday and Sunday in Nairobi there is a Maasai market, and going shopping there has been one of the more interesting cultural experiences I’ve had so far. The market on Saturday is in the city center of Nairobi and is known to be the less expensive version; the Sunday market is near a shopping center that’s actually much closer to my house, but is supposed to be more expensive and have less selection.

First, a little background on the Maasai and their culture:
The Maasai are an African ethnic of semi-nomadic people located in Kenya and northern Tanzania. Due to their distinctive customs and dress and residence near the many game parks of East Africa, they are among the most well known of African ethnic groups. They speak Maa and are also educated in the official languages of Kenya and Tanzania: Swahilii and English. Although the Tanzanian and Kenyan governments have instituted programs to encourage the Maasai to abandon their traditional semi-nomadic lifestyle, the people have continued their age-old customs. Maasai society is strongly patriarchal in nature with elder men, sometimes joined by retired elders, deciding most major matters for each Maasai group. The Maasai are monotheistic, and they call God Engai. A high infant mortality rate among the Maasai has led to babies not truly being recognized until they reach an age of 3 moons. Traditional Maasai lifestyle centers around their cattle which constitutes the primary source of food. The measure of a man's wealth is in terms of cattle and children. Personally, we see Maasai herders with their cattle on the way to school every day. The drought has made it difficult to find grazing land, so they've moved in closer and closer to the cities. Now, even in downtown Nairobi, it is not uncommon to have to cross the street to avoid getting trampled by a few dozen cows.

The market itself takes place in a park in downtown Nairobi. Imagine hundreds of vendors, each with their crafts and goods laid out on blankets that they watch over while sitting under umbrellas and weave or bead or sew more of whatever they’re selling that day. Huge packs of shoppers crowd the narrow aisles between balnkets. Add in the blazingly hot sun, a lot of yelling and heckling over prices, a lot of loud music playing, and of course the diesel fumes that are impossible to get away from in Nairobi. And dust, there’s a lot of dust everywhere. So that’s basically a picture of the market for you.

Last Saturday was my first experience with the Maasai market. It was overwhelming at first, but we ended up having a great time. The second my friends and I walked in, we were swarmed by vendors. As a “mzungu”, the Swahili word for “white person”, you really stick out in public places. Everybody ran up to my friends and I shouting “mzungu, mzungu, look at the nice bracelet I have” and things like that. They were all eager to trade for things we were wearing; they were especially crazy about those rubbery bracelets like the original Livestrong ones. Some of them also offered to trade for the clothing right off our backs, which was obviously not feasible. Another popular marketing strategy was for a seller to walk with you for several blocks, calling you “sister” and explaining how he loves your home country more than any of the other vendors there. “I sell a lot of sandals to the US, I am friends with the US”. Things like that.

Being a mzungu, all the vendors automatically quoted outrageously high prices for everything, but by the end of the morning I was pretty confident with my bartering abilities. I now have several loyal sellers that remember my name and face, and I’ve promised them more business in return for less work getting to a fair price next time. In class, they told us we’ll be even more successful at the markets if we’re able to barter in Swahili, so I may need to wait to go back until my speaking is a little more proficient.