Sitting in the hot sun, Losana does not seem to mind the humidity and the busy carpark beside her as she stacks heaps of wild lemons and cucumbers.
What do you do when it rains, we ask her.
“Au dau vakaruru ikea (I seek shelter there),” she replies, pointing to the overhang of the shop behind her.
She prefers selling her produce outside the Sigatoka Market because she says that since the lockdown, customers had been hard to come by inside the market, where she used to be based.
“I pay the same rate of $1.10 to sell outside, but at least I have a better chance of meeting customers here.”
Losana is selling wild lemons, cucumbers and taro leaves today.
“I don’t mind paying the vendor fee because with one heap of this (wild lemons), I should be able to take care of it.”
You can tell she is a veteran vendor, and she tells me that she’s been selling here in Sigatoka since her son was a toddler.
Now her son has a family of his own.
Losana lives in Draiba village, about an hour’s drive up the Sigatoka Valley, dubbed Fiji’s salad bowl as it is Fiji’s leading supplier of vegetables.
She doesn’t mind the bus travel each day to the market, as the money she earns help her look after her family.
