Yesterday my housemate Maco gave me a ride into town on his motorcycle--
first time I've ever rode a moto and my heart was in my throat the
whole time. Traffic here is illogical and insane, makes me want to drag
the man who failed me on my driver's license down here just to prove
that driving on the wrong side of the road is normal in some places.
Also making U-turns from the right lane in front of four lanes of
backed-up traffic in the night and the rain. The rains here are intense
and flood the streets, but graciously arrive around 7 PM almost every
day.
Maco dropped me off in front of the library, and from there I took the collective taxis, combis, around the city, to the Cinco de Mayo market, to El Mercado de Los Ancianos. The latter is a huge covered market densely packed with stalls arranged roughly by what they're selling: unfortunately, I stepped right into the meat section. The air itself smells like raw carne: subdued and sweaty, warm-colored juices staining the countertops, old ladies waving strips of rags tied to sticks to shoo away the flies. Rows of pig's feet, cut at the ankle, lined up pale and dainty next to the heads. Garlands of intestines and unidentifiable fatty masses.
I passed quickly into the relief of the flower-vendor's aisle, which reminded me of walking through the Como Park Conservatory as a kid. Chlorophyll and calm men arranging bouquets to order. Two dollars for a dozen roses. I bought dahlias, and the vendor cut them with one clean sweep of his knife before wrapping them in newspaper. I wandered all around the market, thinking about farmer's markets in the Twin Cities, about Sunday mornings with my folks wandering past tables of Hmong farmer's vegetables and crafts. Missing home.
When I visited Chiapas two years ago, I used to go to the biggest market in San Cristobal and walk the aisles, letting everything wash over me, moving quickly and impulsively, just for the experience of it. I thought it was a form a meditation, maybe like praying the rosary, something comforting in its repetition. Last semester, in my tourism class, my professor hypothesized that tourists take comfort in markets because they're one of the only places in which their role is more or less clearly defined, mediated by the shared value of cash-for-commodity-- also one of the only places where the tourist can feel no shame in the act of looking. But this time the market felt different. I felt much the same way I do on the street here: stared at, out of place, awkward and way too self conscious. I'm in a weird position between tourist and local, trying to make my home in a place too big for people to get used to me, too homogeneous for me to be uninteresting.
I left the market juggling my flowers and a sangria, and took the combi back to the heart of town. The zocalo is occupied by protesters, but their banners were too crumpled to make out anything beyond iconic images of Zapata, and painted fists breaking chains. I wanted to stop and talk to the people gathered under tarps and banners, but felt like I need to do my homework first, get some context and history for what's happening here. Like a good tourist, I walked on, went shopping.
I bought running shoes, went home, and ran down the huge hill in front of my house to the park and running track at the bottom of the hill. Won myself a lot of stares, whistles, and shouts, but that's what headphones were made for. I'm not a runner, don't know how to run, turned red in the face and ended up walking most of the way, but it felt good anyway.
I read through the evening, and at night Alejandro took me out to Mamey ice cream, a park where kids were doing military acrobatics at 10 at night, and climbed huge monument looking over the city. We got caught in the rain, ate hamburgers on the street with more sangria until a cab rescued us and delivered us back to Sepia Street.
Maco dropped me off in front of the library, and from there I took the collective taxis, combis, around the city, to the Cinco de Mayo market, to El Mercado de Los Ancianos. The latter is a huge covered market densely packed with stalls arranged roughly by what they're selling: unfortunately, I stepped right into the meat section. The air itself smells like raw carne: subdued and sweaty, warm-colored juices staining the countertops, old ladies waving strips of rags tied to sticks to shoo away the flies. Rows of pig's feet, cut at the ankle, lined up pale and dainty next to the heads. Garlands of intestines and unidentifiable fatty masses.
I passed quickly into the relief of the flower-vendor's aisle, which reminded me of walking through the Como Park Conservatory as a kid. Chlorophyll and calm men arranging bouquets to order. Two dollars for a dozen roses. I bought dahlias, and the vendor cut them with one clean sweep of his knife before wrapping them in newspaper. I wandered all around the market, thinking about farmer's markets in the Twin Cities, about Sunday mornings with my folks wandering past tables of Hmong farmer's vegetables and crafts. Missing home.
When I visited Chiapas two years ago, I used to go to the biggest market in San Cristobal and walk the aisles, letting everything wash over me, moving quickly and impulsively, just for the experience of it. I thought it was a form a meditation, maybe like praying the rosary, something comforting in its repetition. Last semester, in my tourism class, my professor hypothesized that tourists take comfort in markets because they're one of the only places in which their role is more or less clearly defined, mediated by the shared value of cash-for-commodity-- also one of the only places where the tourist can feel no shame in the act of looking. But this time the market felt different. I felt much the same way I do on the street here: stared at, out of place, awkward and way too self conscious. I'm in a weird position between tourist and local, trying to make my home in a place too big for people to get used to me, too homogeneous for me to be uninteresting.
I left the market juggling my flowers and a sangria, and took the combi back to the heart of town. The zocalo is occupied by protesters, but their banners were too crumpled to make out anything beyond iconic images of Zapata, and painted fists breaking chains. I wanted to stop and talk to the people gathered under tarps and banners, but felt like I need to do my homework first, get some context and history for what's happening here. Like a good tourist, I walked on, went shopping.
I bought running shoes, went home, and ran down the huge hill in front of my house to the park and running track at the bottom of the hill. Won myself a lot of stares, whistles, and shouts, but that's what headphones were made for. I'm not a runner, don't know how to run, turned red in the face and ended up walking most of the way, but it felt good anyway.
I read through the evening, and at night Alejandro took me out to Mamey ice cream, a park where kids were doing military acrobatics at 10 at night, and climbed huge monument looking over the city. We got caught in the rain, ate hamburgers on the street with more sangria until a cab rescued us and delivered us back to Sepia Street.
(2008)
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