To celebrate moving into my new apartment, I finally bought some paintings from Mafia Alley, a big handicraft market in Arusha. It's the kind of place in which bargaining is expected, and the prices aren't too high. These will add a lot of color to my new place! My favorite is a large painting of a rhino, my favorite animal. The yellow tones in the background match a lot of other things I plan to put in the living room.
The other smaller paintings I bought are in the Tinga Tinga style. Tinga Tinga is a painting style that is very popular here in Tanzania. The style started in the Oyster Bay area in Dar es Salaam in the mid-1900s and spread from there. The founder of the style was Edward Said Tingatinga, and the style was named for him.
Tinga Tinga started out being painted on masonite, using bicycle paint, which made for very bright colors. They are usually very stylized, with caricatures of animals arranged into patterns on bright backgrounds. While they don't have to be of animals, most are because tourists spend the most money on paintings, and visitors like African animals.
They aren't for everyone, but I love them!
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