Wednesday, February 01, 2006

The "FAY-DA"

One of the most interesting things we encountered here was the street market. There is a street market within walking distance just about every day of the week. Each one has it's own set of vendors, products, and character. These pictures are of the Thursday market (known here as the "quinta-feira" which is the Brazilian word for Thursday - original, isn't it?) After checking out several feiras, Shannon has concluded that Thursday feiras are the best. They are loud, with vendors literally shouting over each other in Portuguese to get you to buy their goods. Sometimes they will shout that they've just lowered their prices, so the guy next to him will shout that he lowered his more. It's as much theatre as it is commerce, I think. Of course, there are better reasons than entertainment to go to the "fay-das," you won't find lower prices at any grocery store than you can find here. A 10 Kg bag of limes goes for about $3.00 (Canadian), bananas, papaya, mangoes and oranges are always cheap there. Sometimes you get a great deal on vegetables too. On this day, Shannon was taking pictures so one of the vendors selling fish offered to let Kilah pose with one of his "beauties." On another occasion, I went with Shannon and the girls to the Friday feira, but it wasn't as interesting. However, when they saw me with Shannon they assumed we must be rich, so several kids came up to us asking for money. They're quite happy to get 25 centavos (about 12 cents) so it doesn't cost a lot to make some kids happy. What made us laugh was that Shannon never got asked for money before I showed up. It's a great place to learn the language and culture, and despite stories that there are theives everywhere there, we have never felt unsafe or threatened there at all.