All For Two Bananas

At 10 this morning my friend and I headed to the farmer's market in the park. I was looking forward to this outing – getting out of the house, seeing the farmer's market and just having some girl time. The 15 min. walk went quickly as we chatted away. The first stall had several potted herbs that looked superbly healthy. I was delighted as planting an herb garden was on my list for the weekend. We negotiated the price, paid and began to move on.

The first thing I noticed that reminded me that I was not in America was the table with beef slabs on it. I knew they weren't just placed there moments before because I had jogged by 3 hours earlier when the market was already in full swing. I'll pass on the beef.

Next we found our way into the fruit and vegetable area. It was wonderful. Everything was so much fresher than I have found in the grocery store. A worker motioned for us to use a crate in the center of the floor as we were shopping. We loaded up our crate then checked out the cheese and egg table. I was beginning to worry about how we were going to lug all this produce back to the apartment. We stepped up to pay for our items and asked if we could have the things delivered to my place. Sure enough, just like every other business here in Bogota they would deliver our purchases for us! We gave them my address and told them to leave the items with my Portero. Relived that we didn't have to carry everything home we headed over to the coffee shop.

By the time we made our way back to the apartment we were confident our produce would be waiting for us. After a confusing conversation with the Portero we understood that the kids accepted the produce and it was already upstairs. After dumping our other things on the floor I called to my son and asked where the produce was. He began to stutter. The Portero called, something about “Did I want some produce in my apartment?”. Being wise he wasn't going to fall into the trap of someone selling him vegetable that we didn't want so he told them “no, I don't want the vegetables.”.

My friend and I looked at each other. We were both wondering how we were going to track down our produce. Sighing I put my shoes and jacket back on and we headed out the door. Our feet moved a bit slower on this trip back to the park. Upon arriving we found the market was just being packed up. Yes, our stuff had been rejected; yes, they would deliver it for us once again. My friend headed to her apartment and I back to mine.

When I got back I tried to communicate to the Portero that when my stuff came, please call me and have it sent up to the 7^th floor. Upon hearing the word “call” and seeing me with my fingers to my ears and face as if I were talking on a phone, he lit-up. Grinning he took a piece of paper off his desk and handed it to me. Through his jumble of words I realized he was telling me the deliverer had left his number so that when we arrived back home he could deliver the produce. Figures. Sighing I headed upstairs to wait for the produce so I could walk it over to my friends.