My Life in Azerbaijan - Watermelon, I made a bargain!

July 20, 2010
Watermelon is in season now. In front of every vegetable stand, there are piles of watermelon on display. They are very cheap, about 0.3 manat per kilo (13 cent per lb) and they are sweet and juicy. In a hot summer night, eating a slide of chill and succulent watermelon is like drinking an ice cold beer. As a woman, I am not allowed to purchase beer in this country, so I settle with a slide of watermelon every night.

Yesterday during my routine walk, I passed by a vegetable stand attending by a group of children between age 7-12. They are very cute, helping their father to sell melon. As soon as they saw me they started to cheer and say “salam”. By now, members of my community become accustomed to my present. They see me walk by their neighborhood everyday; shop owners, street vendors, teahouse customers, butchers, chefs from nearby restaurant and children from the playground, all come out and wave with a “salam”, even the homeless dog would wag his tail and bark at me. I do feel like a movie star sometimes. This group of kids tried to sell me their watermelon. I told them I only had 1 manat (US$1.25) and could not afford to buy a big one.

“Problem yoxdur” (no problem)

They said and then pointed to a rotten melon on the floor and laughed. I pretended getting mad and started to walk away. Then, the elder kid pulled me back and picked a small one for me. He weighted it on the scale and said it was 1 manat. I did not believe him because I saw the scale register as 0.98 manat. So I pretended to get mad again. Of course, they laughed and giggled and discussed among themselves for a few seconds. Finally, they picked a bigger one which weighted more than 4.0 kilo. They wanted 1.2 manats for it.

“Mənim bir manatim var” ( I only have 1 manat!)
“yaxşı yaxşı” (ok, ok)

One of the boys took my manta and gave me a big grin; showing his missing front tooth. (He is really a cute boy) As soon as I turned around with my melon, I could hear more laughs, giggles, and whispers. I was afraid they sold me a bad melon, so I turned around and asked them again,

“Pisdir?: (bad melon??)
“Yox, yox! (No, No!)

Slowly I walked away, still hearing more laughs, giggles and whispers behind me. I should be the one laughing, thinking that I made a bargain, but I do feel guilty taking advantage of those innocent boys.