Memorial Festival

Weekends in Moshi can be a little quiet, so at Hostel Hoff we make our own fun. The latest “event”... Memorial Festival.

My goodness, what a hoot! Memorial Markets run several days a week. It consists of ramshackle log stalls with corrugated iron &/or hessian sack rooves, and open areas of trestle tables & wooden carts piled high with clothing. Everything is packed tightly together, and the place is a riot of noise and colour. If you were “directionally-challenged” it would be easy to get completely disoriented down all the little laneways between the stalls.

The markets are set in an open, dusty area which gets horrendously hot as soon as the sun emerges. The occasional vehicle blaring music passes through – pedalling politics or religion. Folks are yelling everywhere, pedalling their wares. A few mentally-ill men gesticulate wildly, rounding out the yelling cacophony. Most Hoffers seem to find their first visit quite overwhelming, although having negotiated the crush of humanity in plenty of Guangzhou (China) markets when I lived there, these are quite tame crowd-wise by comparison. Still, it pays to be aware of your personal belongings at all times!

I don’t know where all the goods come from – China, India, American charity cast-offs, goodness only knows. Some of the clothes there are SCARY! It was perfect for our needs. We were there on a mission: to each purchase the most awful complete outfit we could whilst spending no more than 2,000 TSh (approx. AU$2). It was fun!

I became the “Polyester Jumpsuit Queen”, managing to locate three of the hideous garments. The locals certainly got a few giggles as they watched us trying on various outfits over our clothes. One of the Hoff guys even got some applause from the surrounding ladies when he pulled on a pair of green floral-jungle ladies three-quarter pants.

Then all we needed to do was head back to town to purchase drinks and nibbles and await the arrival of Saturday, and the Memorial Festival...