City Market

This guide to City Market in Nairobi treats haggling as the real sport played under its vaulted, hangar-like roof, raised in the early 1930s to replace an older, plague-scarred market nearby. It follows the unwritten rules traders and shoppers use on curio stalls selling carved giraffes and soapstone, and the building's own path from colonial fruit-and-vegetable hall to national monument saved from redevelopment by traders and conservationists. Along the way it moves through the butchers' stalls where cuts are haggled over for a Sunday nyama choma feast. Listen for how the bargaining ripples down the aisle as you walk it.