This past weekend, the annual Christmas Craft Fair was held by the community in our local city. The fair started several years ago & used to be quite a small, simple event - yet now it has grown to become one of the most looked forward to & well attended events of the entire year ! The photo above shows the school tent, where pupils were selling second hand goods & where the kids could have their faces painted or do crafts. (Can you spot my daughter & I walking through the tent ?!)
People came to exhibit their wares from all over the country & beyond - Arusha, Moshi, Dar es Salaam and as far afield as Nairobi, Kenya and Harare, Zimbabwe. Aren't these colourful bags above just gorgeous ?
It had rained the night before, the photo above was taken early in the morning of the following day so as you can see it was still a little overcast and cloudy - but luckily, not for long !
The fair was held at a local club, out on the rugby playing fields. This photo above shows the entrance/exit to the fair grounds - I loved the lush greeness of it all, coupled with the overhead archways.I think that almost everyone turned out for the big day (although the fair ran for the entire weekend) and I bumped into almost everyone I know here, including some people I'd not seen for years ! In the centre of the field was a huge food & bar tent, where everyone sat at tables to eat lunch (barbecued chicken, hot dogs, pizza, salads etc) - this worked out well as all us ladies could take our time browsing & shopping whilst our husbands sat in the bar tent drinking beer & catching up with each other !
I bought some lovely items at the fair - there was a German lady & her daughter who had made traditional German Christmas treats like biscuits & cakes which I bought, I also got some lovely bush honey, Masaai beadwork items (key rings, jewellery boxes, Christmas tree decorations) & cake decorations, blue & white pottery bowls, coconut wood salt & pepper cellars, Zimbabwean lucky bean salad servers & jam pots - to mention but a few items.
It was a wonderful, social day and although we got back to the farm fairly late on Saturday (it was already dark) and quite tired, it was well worth it (not to mention all the wonderful Christmas shopping I was able to do) !
