Market Day

Market Day

Today is market day, which means it is Saturday, and every weekend all the farmers in the Grecia community and some from farther out come to Grecia for this weekly event. I particularly enjoy it because I feel like it is a social outing where I get to see and talk to the strawberry guy, the tomato lady, the hydroponic lettuce guy, the egg guy and so on. And of course they all recognize us to be gringos (North Americans), but the polite culture of Costa Rica really shines through these people as you feel they are as glad to see you again as you are to see them. When we get home I must wash my hands quickly as I have strawberry juice, papaya, tomato, and many other fruit remnants from shaking the vendors’ hands. It’s my play day though, and any day I get to learn some Spanish is a good day—and that is everyday!

While many of them can speak enough English to transact business, we both show the courtesy of speaking Spanish to them. It is also a social gathering of most of the gringos who live in Grecia and surrounding communities also and there are many gringos who haven’t learned any Spanish or don’t care to, but they are still able to transact their business with ease and they still get the polite smiles. In any event, we always see many people that we know well or casually because this market is well run, the facility is brand new, and it is so huge the gringo turnout is well established also. It is all under cover with cement walkways and there are even eating establishments, but you can almost have a good lunch by sampling the goods as you pick out your veggies and fruits for the week!

There are lots and lots of goods and products at this market; anything from flowers to clothes and pottery and jewelry and the list goes on and on. This is certainly a land of plenty when it comes to fruits and veggies as they still have many fruits and veggies that I don’t have even a clue what they are. If you are the adventurous type, the vendor will happily tell you the various ways to prepare their produce and you will have lots of varieties to experiment with.

When we left this morning to go to market, the sky did not have a cloud in it, but you can see that by 1 pm, when I took this picture, the afternoon rainclouds are forming. All is well though, because we had a great day at the market and I always get a chuckle when I think what we would have spent in a land up north on the produce we just bought!

The picture here of the roses is just plucked from one of our rose bushes that are worth the view because someone made the mistake of telling my wife she could not grow roses here. Someone also told her she couldn’t grow chilies, and so we now have gazillions of those also.

Pura Vida!