San Cristobal: in the mercado and patience paying off

Because I have a week before I head out into the farming communities and my contacts at the university seem to be out of the city on their own research, I have been filling my time with reading (it seems a sociologist has done a version of my study one state over---in Oaxaca), writing (apparently publications don't write themselves), and exploring. Next week there are lectures on fair trade that are being given in the city that I will attend, some of them are being given by folks I've been reading for the last few years, so it's an exciting moment for me to hear them speak, and to (hopefully) talk to them. But that's next week...

A couple of days ago I went to the mercado for vegetables. It was somewhat surreal, on either side of Ave. General Utrilla are places to purchase food. On one side of the street there is a gleaming bright, clean, ordered supermercado (El Mayoreo) with aisles and signs and even two dj's at the entrance, holding some raffle, shouting through microphones and playing loud pop music. On the other side there is an open air mercado adjacent to a covered space, with the people who grew, raised, etcetera selling their stock, some seated with it surrounding them, others with umbrellas, others with tarps and still others who had covered spaces in a tarp city or in the concrete building that represents the space of the Mercado Jose Castillo. Between the two, the calle (read: street) that separates them is a mess of people coming and going to market, combis trying to maneuver to their destinations and folks without a place in the market doing walking sales of a sort.

I turned my back on the supermercado and headed into the mass and mess of people on the other side. Suddenly, I was conspicuously white again, and tall. I walked through the throng of people seated shelling beans, roasting corn (on small fires) arranging broccoli, potatoes and tomatoes. The food was so beautiful and the beans, oh my goodness, the beans were incredible to me, they were shiny coming out of their fuzzy green pods (think pole beans, but with the beans that folks usually only see coming out of a can spilling out of them); reddish pink, black, white gloriousness.

I had to swallow a whole host of questions I wanted to ask these people about production, harvest, land, market sales, travel to and from the market. I also resisted taking photos (the photos in this post are totally unrelated, but from other wanderings over the course of the day). For me, being here is a luxury.

I walked into the concrete structure, it was primarily sales of pan dulce and meat. I was immediately struck by the commingled smells of shellfish, rotting meat and fresh bread and sweets. I walked past long rows of pig parts (heads, feet, cuts, sausages); chicken parts (heads, feet, livers, whole roasters); buckets and buckets full of bright red, whole, unshelled shrimp; eggs; gutted fish and split, salted fish. And just to note, I saw no no evidence of refrigeration, which is interesting.

I made a circuit and then headed into the tarp city. It was a curious mix of vegetables, chicken meat, some live chickens and then the occasional clothing, leather or electronics 'booth.' It was an incredible labyrinth, I emerged at one side, completely lost and ducked back into another part entirely.

When I emerged on the street side that I had entered at, much later and very much by accident I had already decided to buy my produce from the folks outside, who, I surmised were most in need of a sale having no permanent place in the market. A man wandered by me with live roosters tied upside down on his arms, an uncomfortable existence for all involved, no doubt.

I purchased some red bell peppers and corn and retreated. It's difficult to have so many people making claims for your attention and money.