The vegie man comes to SIL every day except Sundays. He wheels in his old bicycle with a massive box of goodies strapped across the rack on the back. The box would have to stick out at least 500mm each side of the bike and weigh heaps as the guy brings an assortment of fruit and vegetables, as well as bread, eggs and even meat!
We only buy a few things every now and then from the vegie man because Marie (Uncle Dave and Aunty Elly's cook) buys most of our food from the markets for us. This is just as well as the vegie man does exactly the same thing, then on-sells his goods to the nassaras at SIL and other missions for an elevated price (fair enough considering he gets it all here on the back of his push-bike!). He is an older, gnarled up fella that speaks machine gun Arabic and French, but he always fires with a smile.
When we first arrived, it was impossible for us to figure out what he was saying, he spoke so fast! He soon learned who we were, and he would scan the vicinity for help before we even had the chance to try and speak with him. Once John was bold enough to cut him off with a "parlez lentement s'il vous plaît, je viennent d'Australie" (speak slowly please, I am from Australia), he laughed and began to slow it down a bit and give him a go. This only got better when John learned how to greet the guy in Arabic!
Now, a few months down the track, we get along well enough with the vegie man. He is actually working on his English too, so every now and then he properly confuses our French train of thought by throwing in the English for egg, or apple: "cinq cents francs pour cinq eggs." Anyway, we thought we'd ask for a photo to introduce him to those of you following our journey! The lady at the back is Halimé, who is the lovely lady who does most of our purchasing (and taught John some basic Arabic greetings).
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