vegetable man

Sort of like the ice cream trucks in urban America, there are fruit and vegetable sellers here who push their carts around, calling out their products. This one is in the camp, but they come down our street, too- though much more often in summer. The fancier ones have actual trucks that they drive slowly around, calling out with a megaphone. When we first arrived in Beirut, upon hearing such commotion, I wondered if we were hearing some sort of political announcement. But it turned out, it was just a guy selling tomatoes to women on balconies.

They have the old balance scales. You tell him you want a kilo of pomegranates, and he puts a kilo weight on one side, and piles up the produce on the other until the two sides are balanced.

He hasn’ t been around in awhile, but every day when the weather was warmer, there was a guy on a moped who sold bread (kaik, actually, a round bread with a hole in it) by driving around the neighborhood honking his horn, revving the scooter engine, and yelling out “Kaik!”. He was on the street below our apartment every afternoon like clockwork. Maybe I will know that winter is over when he reappears.