Feira

Wednesday, January 11

Wednesdays in Chaves are Feira days. Feira is the day when all of the farmers come into town with their cows, sheep, goats, bulls, horses, chickens, rabbits, and ducks. Women set up booths filled with kiwi, oranges, cabbage, brussel sprouts, parsley, collard greens, nuts and olives. Gypsies call out to the customers behind tables piled high with impostor, name brand clothing. And people from all of the nearby villages arrive ready to make their purchases.

I love Feira day…the smells, the people, the sounds, the energy. The part of Feira that I like the best is the area where the large animals are being sold. This takes place in a big grassy, fenced-in field. The field is sectioned off for the various animals. Just outside of the fence are the large trucks that either brought in the animals or that are ready to take the animals away. Working this section of feira are men and only men. Feira is as much a time to be social as it is a time for business. The men are standing together in pairs or small groups discussing livestock, the health of the animals, and bartering, I suppose.

We always visit the animal area with the kids as this is the most interesting part of feira for them. We enter the fenced in field with our camera, kelty child carrier, backpack, bright yellow and red jackets and behave as if we were visiting a zoo. I wonder what those men think of us?

Today’s visit to Feira included only Geninha, Jenna and myself. (Marcos and Duarte where with his “play group.”) We walked through the vegetable market first where Geninha bought a few fresh vegetables for our dinner. I stood back and watched the people. I am always wondering about their lives…where do they live? Can they really make a living selling a few vegetables, nuts, chickens? While I was waiting for Geninha to finish her purchase, I was watching a woman selling olives. She was tall in comparison to the typically smaller stature of the Portuguese. Her dark hair was held back loosely with a barrett. Her face, like her clothes, was smudged with oil and dirt. Her eyes were tired and red.

The olives were soaking in a large, salty barrel. In addition to olives she was also selling “tremosos.” Tremosos are a small, yellow bean that the Portuguese like to eat similar to the way in which Americans eat peanuts. To eat them, you put one into your mouth, squeeze it out of its clear, yellow casing and then eat the cold, salty, bean. It doesn’t have much taste – but the salt makes them surprisingly delectable. The booth had three barrels: dark olives, tremosos and green olives. Geninha saw me watching the woman and decided that I must really be craving some tremosos, so she asked the lady for a bag full. I watched as the lady reached into the barrel with bare hands to scoop up the tremosos and then put them into the bag. She topped the space off with a handful of olives. To rinse her hands, she dipped them into the barrel of olives. I lost my appetite.

In the gypsy area, we pushed our way through the crowds. With Jenna in the backpack, I didn’t have much clearance and frequently bumped into people. Many people stopped to look – commenting on how strange the backpack was – but also what a good idea it was. Somewhere along the way Jenna lost a shoe. A woman passing noticed and informed us of the lost shoe. We were only 3 steps from where it was lost. Jenna was impatient and wouldn’t allow us to put the shoe back on. For the remainder of our time at Feira, woman after woman warned us of the missing shoe. It’s good to know that we won’t be losing any shoes while we are here.

We left Feira with fresh vegetables, gypsy socks, a couple of very poorly, pirated movies, a knock off Tommy Hilfiger shirt and of course the dirty tremosos. It was a nice morning.