Farmers Market in Volos

It is 11:36 a.m. and hot outside. The kind of hot you feel when you’re working in an unair-conditioned garage with the front door closed in the middle of summer. Pores pumping out sweat that doesn’t evaporate under my clothes due to the heavily saturated sea salted air. “Watch your wallets when walking through here.” Are the only words I can remember the tour guide telling me while waiting on the broken sidewalk a block down from the local farmers market.
Back home I witness a farmers market every Wednesday on the south side of town, except ours consist of about ten stands on a good day with a variety of fruits and vegetables you could count on one hand. Not the case in Volos. The first group of stalls channeled down both sides of the street so far that there was no end in sight. Blank stares from behind the fruit stands turned to welcoming grins as they saw our American faces mixed in with the local crowd. Their gapped teeth either missing or worn down as much as the amber worry beads draped around their hands. They weren’t smiling at us as Americans however; they were smiling at our American money. One man lets out a Greek phrase under his breath as I pass by his strawberry stand reading “1.50€” per carton. The stall across from him has cherries arranged all over the table in an array of colors like nothing ever seen back in the United States. Two toned yellowish and red transitions cover them in such an elaborate manner that almost appears painted on. I’m not going to waste time trying to get the man’s attention and then find out he doesn’t speak English though, so I continue down the left side of the street.
Past the moderately generalized fruit section of the market there is a stall with more generic items, almost appearing out of place with the rest of the dominate weekly hagglers. The stall is a horde of kitchenware with various other household items that take up literally every square inch of the allotted street space. Risers soar upward from the base of this “one-stop-shop” on wheels, hanging from them are towels, spatulas, spices, and garlic cloves. Below the man has other trinkets just basking in the midday sun, the less valuable perhaps. This is not the first time I have seen tactics like the jam-packed market stall. It is common-place in most American farmers markets to display all of your inventory to attract the consumers attention, as well as block the view of your competitors. Generalized business tactics are all the same around the globe in these free-for-all situations.
Moving on, the vegetables start to govern both sides of the street with their dull colors and bitter sun-dried aroma. Tea leaves fall and sit idle under some stalls to my right, could someone pick those up for use I wonder and would the lady care? The thought slips out of my mind when I feel the slightest perspiration of water graze against my leg, looking over only to see another Greek man pouring cold water down a metal display case cooling his iced inventory. A bright sun-reflecting glare hits my eyes as I am so strongly trying to focus on what is being flaunted. The sweetness of the fruit and the earthly smell of the vegetables are gone, something else occupies the market air now. Something usually smelled at the docks when walking the ocean view at Volos’ harbor…Fish. The warm fishy smell. The half faces of the sardines looking back at me through yellow eyes while ice melts below their single slotted gills. Stacked in perfect horizontal rows like fallen soldiers, the oily wet shine so distinct to the stereotypical sardine image.

Charles Y.