Entrance to Munada.

Reading this week:

• The Family Trade by Charles Stross
• The Hidden Family by Charles Stross
• The Clan Corporate by Charles Stross
• The Merchant’s War by Charles Stross
• The Revolution Business by Charles Stross
• Trade of Queens by Charles Stross
• Calypso by David Sedaris

This past weekend I went to go visit my friend Katie, and while I was there she took me to Tanzanian Munada. I wrote about Munada before, but it is just a regularly occuring shopping day that happens once or twice a month in different spots. The vendors, I am lead to believe, travel around so different villages have access to a market day. Katie lives pretty near the border to Tanzania, so it is pretty easy to pop over there to go shopping.

Actually, it is phenomenally easy. The above picture is the border. This is looking towards Zambia from the Tanzania side, and there are no border controls. There is the ruins of a little guard shack further up the hill, but unless the bridge goes out there is nothing keeping people from crossing over. I suppose that isn’t so weird. The people just across the border are, you know, stunningly similar to the people on the other side of the border, both being Mambwe and all. To make things even easier, Munada here accepts both Zambia Kwatcha and Tanzanian Shillings. Handy!

Munada over in Tanzania was a pretty standard affair. Katie tells me it is usually bigger, but it appears in the rainy season a number of the vendors are scared off. Plus it was pretty early on a Sunday, so maybe we just hadn’t hit the big crowds yet. The wares for sale at Munada were pretty standard, but covered just about everything. You need bowls? They got bowls. You need chitenge? They got chitenge. You need second hand clothing? They got it. Animals? Check. Seeds? Fertilizer? Got it in droves. Random electrical components or cell phones? Bro, we got you.

I did like the setup of this Munada though because it had more corridors, which lent the whole thing more of a bazaar feel, which was cool. As we wandered around, we didn’t wind up buying much of anything. They had some neat chitenge, but nothing we were really looking for. I admired a tropical-looking polo, but while it was neat it wasn’t the 20 kwatcha they were asking for neat. We did wind up with some vegetables, and we also bought a watermelon as a treat. Overall it was worth seeing, even if just for the novelty of taking a jaunt over to Tanzania just to go shopping. So a good way to spend a Sunday morning.