Food and Capitalism

One of my favorite Tanzanian street foods is sugar cane (miwa). The street venders buy a couple of full stalks (which can be six feet tall), then use machetes to flay off the hard husk and chop it into pieces as thick as a good steak and about the same diameter as an Oreo cookie. They then put five or six pieces into a small clear plastic bag and sell them for 100 tsh (9 cents!!). You bite off a chunk and chew and suck the sugar crystals from the woody pulp. After you are done chewing, you have a mouthful of dry wood-like fiber. If you want to fit in, you just casually spit out the remains onto the ground. When in Rome…

Other common street food is grilled quarter pieces of corn, peeled green oranges (the oranges are greenish yellow, so for the longest time I refused to get them because I thought that they were unripe and sour), handfulls of peanuts, hard-boiled eggs, and coconuts. Everything but the coconuts are 100 tsh (coconuts are 600-700), so they are all quite popular with the local Tanzanians. The results in that the vendors are everywhere, the roasted corn and orange venders are usually in the same place everyday, while the others just roam an area. It is capitalism in its most pure and basic form.

In fact, capitalism is in full effect in Tanzania, at least from my experience in Dar and Bagamoyo. Everybody is selling something. Though most people selling their stuff from a small duka (store), many just roam the streets with their wares in their hands. I have seen these portable, one-man stores selling kitchen wear, pillows, boot-legged DVD’s, women’s clothes, shoes, knifes, books, etc. The funniest two walking stores I have seen so far where the dude selling a balance--not balances--just one balance. I think this gentleman did not really understand his buying public. The other guy was carrying one coat rack (yes, a full coat rack), clothes hangers, and pillows. He just stood by the edge of the road looking like wished he was anywhere but where he was at that moment. I guess if they make one or two sales a day, they are okay.

Back to the small dukas, they line the streets everywhere. And the funny thing is that you will have three stores in row all selling the exact same thing. Then down the street, you’ll see three dukas all selling the same again. These stores are usually small; most are nothing more than a tin-roofed shack with no electricity. They really don’t advertise, other name a small name directly over the entrance. So you have to walk around looking into each store to often find what you want, but if you look hard enough, you can find anything. It is really interesting to see all the people all doing their thing, finding their niche, and making an honest living.