The grouchy strawberry guy & other miscellaneous musings

Souk pictures taken by Barb last year -

this is where I do my weekly vegetable & fruit shopping.
At least this man sells his eggs with platforms which he cuts to size and ties when you select your eggs. Some send the eggs home in a plastic bag occasionally with hay.

Learning language is funny. Sometimes you feel a great sense of accomplishment, and other times you feel as if you haven’t learned one single thing.

Buying strawberries a while ago, I asked for the price in Arabic. The vendor said, “Oh! You know Arabic!” then promptly asked me a long question which I told him I did not understand. Throwing up his hands, he loudly announced to everyone within earshot, “This woman knows nothing!!!”

“Thanks a lot, buddy. See if I come back.” I thought. Sadly, the next week, he had the best strawberries around. Taking a deep breath, I decided I had to put up with his grouchiness yet again. This time he tipped the scales and cheated me. Too bad he had the best strawberries again the next week!

But other times, I say only a few words and someone will say, “What fabulous pronunciation! What wonderful Arabic! How is it that you know so much!?!”

Obviously, I cannot rely on these random comments to give me a true sense of what my language abilities are!

Now that I carefully avoid the grouchy strawberry guy, I always find more encouragement than not at the souk (farmer's market) –

Last week as I was buying apricots, the vendor told me the price in Rials (the old Moroccan money) – which means you have to divide by 20 before paying in Dirhams (the current money). A passerby said to the vendor, “Tell her the money in Dirhams! She’s a foreigner!” to which the vendor replied, “No – she understands – she’s one of us!” I wanted to give the guy a big hug. But of course, I didn’t want to start a scandal right there in the middle of the market.

I love how the vendors sincerely call me “my sister” and ask about the girls if they are not along…and when they are, and it always cheers me how they receive so many gifts of kindness – a banana, a piece of pomegranate held out in a weathered, worn, and muddy hand….they’ve even been given eggs from the man pictured above.

I love the vibrant colors of natural fruit and vegetables, the rawness of it all – twin carrots, filthy potatoes, onions with all their greens, a bucket of live snails for soup, the rock from which the salt is ground, chickens tied up for sale - all these things that are hidden from us in the sterile store aisles of the west.

Then there’s the guy advertising his miracle herbal cures. Sadly, he’s managed to get a loudspeaker so that all can hear. But the watermelon guys are my favorite. Loud and boisterous, they holler out why their prices and products are so much better than everyone else’s.

A passerby offers a vendor his piece of watermelon. The vendor breaks off some then hands most of it over to me. How much sweeter is fruit from this generous hand than from the grouchy strawberry guy!