African Market

Market Place comes to Mt. Meru!

A colorful marketplace appeared each morning on the lawns of the Mt. Meru Novotel to provide some distraction from days full of meetings.  Local Vendors and Artists set up stalls, blankets and tables full of products ranging from beautiful brilliantly colored cloth, to necklaces, to any Masai creation imaginable.  As the Forum participants spent their days in Workshops and Plenaries, these vendors spent their days in the sun and shade professing that they had the cheapest, most beautiful beaded slippers and woodcarvings.  The market place brought some of the beauty, life and vitality of Tanzania directly to the conference - and when one did not need to leap over hanging cloth to reach a workshop room, it was a much appreciated diversion during refreshment breaks.

Highlights:

- One young Masai youth, named Supen, sold copies of a documentary he made about Masai life and traditional medicine, along with baskets, beaded Masai jewelry made by his mother and sister, and woolen red and blue plaid blankets.

- TFNC set up a table selling Kangas (pieces of printed fabric), posters and descriptions of their great work.