Читать книгу Fairy tale. Camel, Crocodile and Friday - Рза Рагимович Кафаров - Страница 6

Gradually, Camel developed its mode of daily timetable life in Achmas. Every day, up to a dozen residents gathered with Camel, of whom more than half were children. In asking Camel about the smallest details of his life, Achmas people were convinced that he had come a long way in life and had gained a lot of experience. He was well-read, knew a lot from life and from books. Therefore, over time, the Achmas people themselves began to seek advice from Camel. Like all inhabitants of a small town, Achmas people liked to talk about a big outside world, about events of world significance.

But they knew a lot only by hearsay, and they misunderstood much from media reports. As a result, they often argued, for they interpreted the meaning of events and phenomena of the external world in different ways. With the arrival of Camel, an authority appeared in the city, to whose opinion they could now turn to as the last decisive instance.

In the mornings, Camel got up quite early and made his morning run outside the city, the run gradually turned into a walk.

One of the Achmasians, with whom Camel became close friends, was a biology teacher at a school named Rustam-muallim. The teacher was a well-read man and his conversations with Camel were more profound.

The most friendly relations established between Camel and the Achmasian children, they could endlessly ask him questions about different distant countries and listen to his stories about what he had seen or read. They were especially admired by his stories about the wonders of Africa or India, about their animal world – lions, tigers, elephants, hippopotamuses. But when Camel and the children got tired of a long conversation, Camel put all the children on his hunchbacked back and rolled them through the city streets. The delight of children was no limit.

In Achmas there was one large enterprise – a cannery and several large workshops. In all these enterprises, Camel was free to enter, everywhere he was greeted with love and respect, and to him willingly explained the essence of the production process. Camel was very fond of visiting enterprises. At the cannery, he watched with interest how a big trucks drove up to the plant all day (and the plant worked around the clock), full of tomatoes, eggplants, squash, apples, pears and many other mature fruits of the generous southern nature.

At the height of the ripening season of vegetables and fruits, the plant did not have admit to receive the delivered fruits, and then a long, slowly moving line of loaded cars lined up in front of the factory gates. At the same time, some of the fruits were already beginning to deteriorate, and under some trucks on the ground pools of fruit and vegetable juices were formed.

Trucks drivers spent hours in their cabins or on the side of the road; the convoy of trucks moved forward only an few tens of meters in an hour. Finally, a loaded truck drove into the gates of the plant, and then unloading began.

Hefty movers picked up the filled boxes and carried them to a large reception funnel, where they were poured out. And trucks – dump trucks themselves drove the body to the receiving funnel, raised the front of the body and poured its contents into the funnel.

From the receiving funnel, the fruit fell on the conveyor (conveyor), which brought the fruit into the washing chamber. Here, streams of water flowed from above and the fruits were washed clean. Then they again fell on the conveyor, which brought them to the sorting shop. On both sides of the conveyor there were women – sorters who took away the spoiled fruit, throwing them into special vats, and suitable fruits moved further on the transporter, getting into the capper closing workshop. Here, women – corkers sealings filled the jars with the fruits, after which the syrup was poured into the jars and covered them with lids.

Jars and lids before this, in another workshop, were rejected and cleaned. The jars filled with fruits and syrup were corked with a special machine and entered via the conveyor into the brewhouse. Here, jars with fruits were loaded into cooking pots (digester; boiler), where canned food was cooked using the heat of water vapor. Cooking time for each type of fruit was different. The syrup poured into jars was also notable. For fruit, it was a solution of sugar in water (sweet water), and for vegetables it was a solution of salt in water (salt water). Various foods, called spices, were also added to the canned food. They gave canned food a special taste or smell.

After cooking, the jars cooled and entered the warehouse, from where they were taken away by cars and trains to different cities.

In other cases, Camel went to small workshops, which were especially numerous near the bazaar. There were workshops where painted wooden chests were made, bound with iron bands. In such chests, Achmas brides saved and kept their dowry, and with this chest bride came to their husband’s house. There were workshops where various metal utensils were made, hats were sewn, threads and fabrics were painted.

In all workshops Camel was greeted as a welcome guest. After visiting the next workshop, Camel went to the bazaar (market), chose and ate what he wanted, and the sellers vying with each other offered their fruits to Camel.

CHAPTER 5