One shop looks much like the next - what makes them stand out are their inventive names & colourful signage ! This is a photo of a typical Tanzanian shop – known as a “Duka” in the local Kiswahili language. You will find shops like this in most of the local villages, towns and cities. This particular shop is in a small town which we pass through on our way to school and to the city beyond. It is about 45 minutes from the farm.
I’m not sure how much you can make out in the picture, but there is a fuel pump outside the shop, which is called (see the Coca Cola sign on the right) “Okashi Shop” and the shop to the left (another Coca Cola sign) is called “Mama Tonga Shop”.
Coca Cola signs can be found everywhere here. Even in the most remotest, dustiest villages you are sure to find a Coke sign – how’s that for marketing, hey ? Other popular ‘branding’ which you find adding a splash of colour in the villages are logos/ads for mobile phone network providers, soap powder and toothpaste.
Tanzania has some amazing artists and any type of sign you need made or copied, can be easily ordered from a roadside “sign writer” and they will paint it for you out in the open, under the hot African sun. Many dull, dilapidated buildings have been brightened up with colourful signs and after 10 years of living here, I still have a chuckle at some of the shop names that I see.
Hairdressing salons are called “saloons” (think Wild West !) and are nothing more than a small, dark room with a few mirrors, chairs and basic equipment. In one of our local villages we have a shop called “Eat Mango Stationery Supplies” (I kid you not !) and we also have a “Good News Bar” and “Juma’s Fresh Shop”. Local butcheries have whole animal carcasses hanging in open windows (no glass) and you simply go up and order however many kilo’s of meat you require, which is then hacked off for you and weighed on an old rusty scale. (Butcheries are best visited early in the morning - before the flies come out!) I should just add here that I buy my meat from the only ‘proper’ butchery in the city, which has electricity, freezers and fridges !
In every village you will find ladies sitting along the roadside cooking food (like whole maize, mandazi - deep fried sweet dough 'cakes' - or meat) on small, open fires for passerby to puchase. The women are always wearing brightly coloured local kitenge cloths around their waists and heads, and this, too, adds a lovely splash of colour to the otherwise dusty villages.
Livestock such as cattle, goats and chickens are a regular part of the village landscape, as are skinny scavenging dogs. Wooden carts are used to transport goods around the villages – anything from furniture to vegetables – and these are all hand drawn by muscular young men who manoeuvre the carts in and out of the traffic without so much as batting an eyelid.
Just writing about village life here has made me realize that I really do need to take some more photo’s so that I can put them on the blog – especially of some of the local butcheries and the colourful, humorous signs … but hopefully what I’ve described here, has given you a small idea of what life in a Tanzanian village is like !
I’m not sure how much you can make out in the picture, but there is a fuel pump outside the shop, which is called (see the Coca Cola sign on the right) “Okashi Shop” and the shop to the left (another Coca Cola sign) is called “Mama Tonga Shop”.
Coca Cola signs can be found everywhere here. Even in the most remotest, dustiest villages you are sure to find a Coke sign – how’s that for marketing, hey ? Other popular ‘branding’ which you find adding a splash of colour in the villages are logos/ads for mobile phone network providers, soap powder and toothpaste.
Tanzania has some amazing artists and any type of sign you need made or copied, can be easily ordered from a roadside “sign writer” and they will paint it for you out in the open, under the hot African sun. Many dull, dilapidated buildings have been brightened up with colourful signs and after 10 years of living here, I still have a chuckle at some of the shop names that I see.
Hairdressing salons are called “saloons” (think Wild West !) and are nothing more than a small, dark room with a few mirrors, chairs and basic equipment. In one of our local villages we have a shop called “Eat Mango Stationery Supplies” (I kid you not !) and we also have a “Good News Bar” and “Juma’s Fresh Shop”. Local butcheries have whole animal carcasses hanging in open windows (no glass) and you simply go up and order however many kilo’s of meat you require, which is then hacked off for you and weighed on an old rusty scale. (Butcheries are best visited early in the morning - before the flies come out!) I should just add here that I buy my meat from the only ‘proper’ butchery in the city, which has electricity, freezers and fridges !
In every village you will find ladies sitting along the roadside cooking food (like whole maize, mandazi - deep fried sweet dough 'cakes' - or meat) on small, open fires for passerby to puchase. The women are always wearing brightly coloured local kitenge cloths around their waists and heads, and this, too, adds a lovely splash of colour to the otherwise dusty villages.
Livestock such as cattle, goats and chickens are a regular part of the village landscape, as are skinny scavenging dogs. Wooden carts are used to transport goods around the villages – anything from furniture to vegetables – and these are all hand drawn by muscular young men who manoeuvre the carts in and out of the traffic without so much as batting an eyelid.
Just writing about village life here has made me realize that I really do need to take some more photo’s so that I can put them on the blog – especially of some of the local butcheries and the colourful, humorous signs … but hopefully what I’ve described here, has given you a small idea of what life in a Tanzanian village is like !
