From his stall piled with pears, apples, dates and the dark brown fruit of oak trees, Ali Jafari watches the gentle stream of shoppers at the weekly sidewalk market.
They are bundled in scarves and long thermal T-shirts on an overcast, chilly morning on the first Friday of the year. As customers mill from stall to stall, the chatter is of the economy, inflation and the merits of the Hollywood movies for sale on pirated DVDs.
Jafari, a 41-year-old former auto factory worker, started selling fruit three years ago in this middle-class neighborhood in western Tehran, on a dirt lot next to a mini soccer field and low-rise apartments.
A married father of two, he earns about $750 a month from the stall, more than three times what he made working at the state-owned auto plant.