Today, we salute the men and women, mostly women, who with skill beyond our comprehension, balance all manner of goods on their heads:
Large, hand-woven baskets of tomatoes that we buy for twenty-five cents a pound;
Round, metal trays of mangoes, polished every so often with an old rag, which, should you fancy, can be sliced open for you on the spot at no extra cost;
Unwieldy, massive bundles of kindling, salvaged wood planks or poles to be used for who-knows-what, tied with twine or dull, speckled banana leaf;
Red, plastic tubs of carrots with spring-green tops intact, so impossibly bright and fresh-looking that to city-slicker-ed eyes, they look like props for TV;
Gray, cardboard trays of brown, spotted eggs (always use the "float or sink test" to see if they’re fresh!), yellow buckets of Lake Victoria water, heaps of alien-looking sweet potatoes;
And the very impressive, ubiquitous bunches of bananas, so much wilder-looking than the ones we used to buy on the streets of New York, five for a dollar, from our Bangledeshi fruit vendor.
No comments:
Post a Comment