Carts

I wrote a post about carts but at just that time I got an e-mail asking where all the photos went and now I've been holding off posting until I can get my camera and a cart together in one place. However I forget it every single day so you're just going to have to read until I can get my act together.

In Lucknow, and probably in other parts of India, its quite common to see hand or bicycle powered carts in the neighbourhood streets. Hardly a morning goes by with out the cry of “Aloooo!” ricocheting down the streets. Aloo means potato. Often these carts peddle vegetables, so that if you wanted you could do your daily vegetable shopping when the cart comes down the street. One day Nicole and I were walking back from the office and she wanted some vegetable so we stood very still, listening for the vegetable seller and trying to guess from where he was shouting. Melody had a theory that they have a very special way of shouting, and it certainly seems so, because their shouts seem to carry very well.

There are also carts, usually pulled by bicycle, which buy garbage, such as plastic bottles and bags. They then sell this garbage to factories for recycling. Our garbage man also has a bicycle cart, with four massive burlap sacs in the back into which he empties our trashcan. Even though I’ve never said anything to the garbage man except, “thank you” and “one minute” (both in Hindi), he’s probably my favourite person that I’ve never talked to in the whole world. He’s probably in his thirties, has only one arm, and he has two children that help him sometimes. He always wears the same blue shirt everyday. There are also popcorn carts, and men with little toy horns or cotton candy sometimes walk down the street.

Many ‘shops’ operate from carts. There is an intersection not far from our house, which always has several fruit stalls, and at least one teashop, which are simply on wooden carts with metal wheels.


In other news a new volunteer from America is coming! Apparently she's involved in dance and will be staying for around a month. So she and I will be moving back to the office.