ENTRY 23- TRADITIONS

Language 4 Entry Nª 23



Traditions that still survive in my town.

The fast development of technology during the last decade is making many interesting, characterising and pictoresque customs and traditions disappear. This is the case of the grocer who sells vegetables in a cart drawn by horses. The cart is generally made of wood, with beautiful paintings on its walls, and a kind of roof. Many of them shout aloud their products, but others have a loudspeaker. You can hear them from a long distance. But it is not sure that they will give you the exact weight.
Many of them go to the countryside to sell their vegetables, but they also have competitors who go to sell goods in vans as well. Nevertheless they still insist on their business. They also have one advantage over the ones who go in vans. As their cart is drawn by horses, they can go to the countryside even when it is raining, or when there is mud in the roads which makes difficult for vans to drive in the mud. Horses need some corn and water, they will not stop if you have run out of petrol. The same happens with the cart wheels, as they are made of wood and iron, they do not suffer from punctures.
On the other hand carts have a disadvantage, they are slower than vans. Nevertheless they still survive.
Another traditional character is the man who sells peanuts, the peanut seller. He also drives a cart drawn by a horse. Their cart is not as colourful as the grocers are, they have a special machine to toast the peanuts. So when you buy them, they are warm. They offer salad peanuts, with sugar, raw peanuts. They also carry very little and thin paper bags. Many years before, they used to put the peanuts in a cone made of paper. It was a kind of science, this craft of them, the way they put the sheet of paper in order to make a cone. They also have a characteristic whistle which identifies them. They sell peanuts specially during the evening.
The next character is the man who sells sugar cottons in the street. He walks across the neighbourhoods carrying a big pole with holes in it. In each hole he puts a colourful sugar cotton, he has pink, yellow, blue cottons, all of them wrapped in a plastic bag. Other sugar cotton sellers install their machine in a corner where they play a whistle. They prepare the sugar cottons while the kids choose the colour. It is also a science for them to see them preparing the sugar and when the machine makes the sugar liquid they introduce a long stick where the sugar cottons stick forming a great ball. I used to buy them when I was a child. Now I buy them to my son. But I still like to eat a sugar cotton.