Selling oranges in Mexico
I was just looking through some old photos from one of my Mexico trips and came across one you might find interesting. The anthropology majors out there might be more into this than the rest of us, but hey looking at this picture will help you learn Spanish.
My previous statement might be hyperbole, but the picture was taken in a town of whose name I am having a hard time recalling. It was somewhere in the state of Puebla, México. The gentleman selling oranges has finished weighing them with the hanging scales and is about to dump them into a clear plastic bag for the patron who is looking in a change purse for money. Oranges are usually pretty cheap in many areas of Mexico– in my experience– costing a few pesos per kilogram, which might end up being about 10 to 30 cents a pound US.
Click the picture see a huge version.
A man selling oranges from the back of his pickup truck, on the side of the street. The oranges might actually be mandarins or tangerines in this case, I can’t really tell.
With a picturesque church steeple in the background, draped with furry white clouds on a bright blue sky, you can see the heat of the day would coerce you into buying a couple of kilos as well.
While not officially sanctioned in most areas, sellers can usually set up shop anywhere along the road, on street corners, or even take over the sidewalk without being harassed by official representatives of the law.
In many towns and cities there is even the official plaza day, which is usually a once-a-week open air market that takes over a few contiguous streets. Farmers and other dealers set up their tables to sell fruits, vegetables, fish, meat, and cheese at competetive prices. Tarps strung overhead amongst a tangle of ropes tied to telephone poles and window security bars, ward off the heat. There is lots of noise as each comerciante hawks his wares and the busy patrons push to get through the crowd. After all the sights and smells are bought or stowed for the return journey home, all that’s left is a medley of fruit peelings, papers, and empty takis bags for the garbage men to sweep up.
While you’re at it, why don’t you pick me up a couple kilos of those tangerines?
Just an interesting note on Orange from me
Orange is a colour name as well as being a fruit name.In Turkish, Orange (the fruit) means PORTAKAL and they say that it was because of the Portuguese people who brought it to Turkey. The pronunciation of portakal is so close to PORTUGAL. But, interestingly, Portakal doesn’t mean orange (the colour). We have another name for that. As far as i know, it is Naranja in Spanish and used just like English; colour and the fruit. I wonder how is the case in other languages. Maybe i should post somethings about that in my blog.
Sorry David, for being off-topic!!
Btw, i voted for your WTF on Technorati. Coolness!
tomisimo
In Spanish, naranja is the fruit and anaranjado is the color, BUT informally, many people also use naranja as the color. If I remember right, the word naranja comes from Arabic. Thanks for the interesting side-note about the Turkish word.