Christmas shoppers keeping farmers busy

By LOTTIE WAYAGURE
It was a busy pre-Christmas at Boroko Market with suppliers wanting to go back home to their villages in time for Christmas.
The market was packed with local suppliers as early as 6am trying to sell their goods so they could have enough time to do Christmas shopping and travel back to their villages.
Rigo, in Central, is a major supplier of bananas to the city.
“It’s a long journey back to the village that’s why we are here early,” said Taimo Tau, one of the Rigo banana suppliers from Rigo.
“We usually bring our supplies, sell them and sleep over with relatives for a day or two before making our way back home.”
This time, however, they had to change their modus-operandi because it was important that they went back to their families at home for Christmas.
Tau said they knew people in town would need a lot of fresh produce for their Christmas gatherings and had grown their crops early in anticipation of this.
Maino Joe, a PMV driver who takes villagers to the city with their fresh produce, said he was woken from sleep by one of the boys in the village at 3am.
“I don’t know if it’s the Christmas excitement or if they just meant to get to town fast to do their sales, because the whole lot were excited for today’s trip,” he said.
This is expected to continue for New Year’s Day.