Walking Through the Moshi Market

I would like to first start this post with the topic of driving. First off, they drive on the left side of the road here, which is very disorienting. Upon arrival, I was unaware of this and became quite alarmed when I awoke from a nap on my shuttle bus from the airport when it seemed we were going to crash head on to another car, as to the best of my knowledge, we were on the wrong side of the road. Not the case. The traffic here has one speed. It does not matter if you are in the country with nothing around, or driving through the market with thousands of people, you are going 35 km an hour. It seems extremely slow in the country, but in the city where there are massive amounts of people and other cars and the roads are pretty much dirt pathways between little hut like shops, you're flying.
The rule we all know and love back home, "pedestrains have the right of way", certainly does not apply here. You dodge cars... with the five d's of dodgeball - dodge, dip, duck, dive and dodge.
The horn at home is reserved for emergencies, greeting friends, driving through the liftlock tunnel, and letting that guy who cut you off know he's an s.o.b. Here, it is used far more losely. Like hey, im going to follow the road around the corner... Honk. Hey, there are people around, honk. They clearly took the drivers ed lesson of "communicate with your horn" seriously here.
Anyway, so walking through the market. I was about 4 inches away from being hit by a car yesterday... not like tapped, where you fall down, get up and toss the bird, but like broken leg, hospital visit, surgery, dying in African hospital hit by a car. You see, this one was my fault. On this road there were 4 driving lanes, with a median splitting them into northbound and southbound on the road. So I am on the sidewalk about to cross the street, I look left, step out and bam! A car comes from my right and nearly knocks me over. Ah yes, the other side of the road thing. Apparently this is important. So for all of you (one of you) who are coming to Tanzania shortly, remember that looking left, right, left before you cross is now right, left, right.

The market is quite amazing, there are many shops, all selling artisan type things, scultures, paintings, jewlery. The Tanzanian people are amazing artists. There are many who's paintings are astounding, and quite often you meet with the artist that painted them in the market. Its like a really big Kempenfest, for those of you who know what I'm talking about. Then there is the food part, where you can by produce and meat (like St Lawrence Market). It was here where I saw one of the coolest things: massive slabs of raw meat being mutilated by butchers. It was awesome, you could see all the muscle fibers and insertion points on the skeletal parts that were still attached. I was pretty excited, everyone else gagged and left. Haha. There are also a lot of places that sell brooms... like the largest assortment of brooms I have ever seen. I guess it really is dusty here.

In the actual market, if you are white, you will be followed. People will show you everything they can with a 'special rafiki price for you because you are my friend'. For some advice, the 'special rafiki price' is about 300% of what it would be if you were a local. There are some places you can blend in when traveling and appear as if your not a tourist, but a stocky white kid in Tanzania is pretty much screwed with that. Hapana, asante (no thank you) are two words I will always remember, as within that two hours I was at the market, I must have used them several hundred times.

Anyways. Keep it real Canada.
Watch some hockey for me; I'm missing it already.