los mercados mexicanos

remember when i tried to describe what markets are like here, but failed miserably to give a description that did them justice? well, if you were curious to know more, you are in luck. the other day, i was re-reading the mexico section of a book called tales of a female nomad [that i originally read on the plane ride down here] and came upon a brilliant description of a mexican market. this might be a little botched [the keyboard i am using is rather dodgy] and its a bit long, but its wonderful and i have to share...


entering the market through a side entrance, i am immediately surrounded by pinatas: mickey mouse, goofy, donald duck, and an assortment of animals and aliens dressed in their colorful paper mache skins. they are standing on the floor and hanging over my head, hundreds of donkeys and dinosaurs, cats and dragons, boys and girls, hogs and bugs. all the colors of the rainbow are swirling in front of me, swinging to the salsa music that is blasting out of unseen speakers. i am swinging, too. the brassy, percussive sound of the caribbean is contagious.

then i am out of pinatas and into avocados, shades of brown and green in massive piles on flowered oilcloth. then mounds of sweet smelling mangos fight for my attention with the pineapples. there are booths of papayas, red, yellow, and green. bananas, big and small, thin and fat. dozens of varieties of peppers and chiles fresh and dried and mounded in cubicles. tomatillos, jicama, carrots, tomatoes, and bunches of green leaves. for awhile, cilantro dominates the air, until i pass a table full of oregano. seconds later, i stop next to a table covered with yellow squash blossoms and wonder what they taste like.

there are children in the booths, babies swinging in tiny hammocks, nine year olds wooing customers, "senora, buy my watermelon. good taste. sweet."

i pass through mountains of green and red and brown and rust colored pastes, three feet high, the essence of mole sauces, redolent of cloves and garlic, oregano and cinnamon. nothing is wrapped in plastic or sealed in containers. it is all there to be smelled and seen and tasted and bought. i am surrounded by the colors, the smells, the sounds of a culture that lives life full out.

there are brains and stomachs and kidneys and tongues, feet and tails and intestines. butchers are slapping and smashing meet on huge wooden blocks, beating red blobs into tenderness. they are scissoring and chopping up yellow chickens that have been fed marigolds so their skin and flesh are gold. heads here, feet there. innards sorted.

the butchers are mincing beef and hacking pork, sharpening knives and chopping slabs. cleaving, slapping, scissoring, beating. its a spectacular percussion band, with its own peculiar instruments.

the shoppers, thick in the aisles, are carrying string and plastic and cloth bags full of newspaper wrapped packages of their purchases.

i wriggle through the crowd to peer into waist high vats of thick white cream and barrells of white ground corn dough called masa. i cannot stop smiling at the explosion of joy i have felt since i passed under the canopy of pinatas. its exciting to be exploring a world i know nothing about, discovering new smells, and moving through a scene where i am a barely noticed minority of one, swallowed up by the crowd.

- rita golden gelman

basically she said it better than i ever could. and i promise there really are that many things to see and smell and enjoy in every market ive visited. enjoy!