My husband and I decided to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary by visiting Petra, the amazing Nabataea site. We crossed into Jordan just south of the Lake of Galilee and drove down the Jordan Valley. On our way, we noticed that many of the vehicles transporting agricultural produce were decorated in a way we’d never seen before:
These vehicles are decorated by the farmers themselves. They caught my eye because they are the only colorful objects in an otherwise arid landscape. I was curious why a poor farmer would invest time and money to decorate, sometimes elaborately, what is merely a functional vehicle. What are the origins of this phenomenon? Cultural? Commercial? Something else?
I asked around but no one had a good answer. So I decided to flip the question: if the farmers are spending this much money, what is the benefit that they get? Continue reading ‘Designer pickup trucks’
