by CAROL MARTINDALE
Bridgetown early, Saturday morning
See the women, how they calling
Come for your breadfruit, come for your corn,
Come for your apples, fresh as the morn
Come for banana, come for potato,
Come for yuh guava, yuh guava, yuh guava.
It’s Saturday morning in Cheapside in the City and the hustle and bustle is on as shoppers are out early to get the best picks of fruit and vegetables on display.
Vendors, young and old, have their trays ladened with all the produce for sale.
From as early as 5:30 a.m. there is a lot of activity on the Fontabelle stretch nearer to Cheapside, where vendors dot both sides of the roads. They are nestled between the Cheapside and the Barven markets which are also a hive of shopping activity.
Vice-president of the Barven Association, Erskine Forde, said he expects a busy Christmas season, and he said already it is shaping up to be just that.
“We have been preparing for it. We have a lot of produce and every Saturday we are seeing new faces. We always have a huge crowd around the Christmas time,” he said last Saturday morning as he stood by his stall which had a bountiful supply of cucumbers, sweet potatoes, peas and tomatoes to name a few.
Sometimes business is so good around this time of year that some vendors have to “go and come again” to replenish their trays.
“Even if people don’t have money we still like to make sure they go away with something. At the end of the day it’s about the people,” he said.
