Saturday night my host mom took me to the market with her. The market actually happens Sunday morning, but all of the fruit sellers come out Saturday night to get a jump on things. I wish I felt less invasive and touristy walking around with a camera because the market was absolutely gorgeous. Piles of all kinds of fruits filled makeshift tables illuminated by single light bulbs. There were baskets of pineapple, watermelon, papaya, bananas, and cantaloupe. Women in their colorful guipiles (traditional blouses) bartered with vendedores over mounds of orange, green, yellow, and red mangoes of five different classes. My host-mom introduced me to her butcher so he would clean all of the fat off the meat for me like he does for her. Then I watched him hack apart a cow to sell us some ribs.
The market reminds me that I live in a different country and a different culture. The simple act of buying groceries is so foreign to me. It’s not just the color and disorganized noise of the market in contrast with the stark orderliness of a grocery store. Each week it seems that there are fruits and vegetables I have never seen before. At every turn there is another person selling more of the same thing. Which do I buy from? You don’t appreciate the simplicity of fixed prices until you have to bargain without any idea of what a fair price is.
While all of this is very excited and contributes to my love of going to the market, this is also the place that I feel the most different, the most like an outsider. Prices are different for me, and that’s just a fact. I have been lucky in my life to rarely, if ever, feel discrimination due to my appearance, so I imagine this is a good learning experience for me. It’s a horrible feeling to hear the prices that are quoted to my host-mom in comparison to what I have paid. But my host-mom is slowly teaching me what things should cost, and with this newfound knowledge my bargaining will improve. She is also teaching me how to choose my fruits and vegetables so they are the freshest and will last me all week. She has tricks for everything- this fruit has to sound like this, this fruit has to be hard, this fruit soft etc. etc.
In the market they also sell ropa tipica (typical clothing of the area) and even though I would look silly wearing it, I always admire it and want to buy it. After a trip to the market last Sunday my host mom realized my obsession with ropa tipica and gifted me a piece of corte fabric to have sewn into a skirt. When the women here wear corte (traditional skirts), they just use a huge piece of fabric which they wrap around them in special way and secure with beautiful belts (fajas). I am really excited about my imitation skirt, even if I will probably look like a fool. Apparently my host aunts are excited too because they are already planning what blouses to find me that would match.
Living with kids has definitely been good for my Spanish. I found a book of Disney fairytales in English among the things that the old volunteer left and gave it to my 8 year old host sister. Tonight she brought it out and asked me to read it to her in Spanish. I don’t know if you have ever tried to read a story written in English out loud in Spanish, but I’m not sure I did Snow White justice.
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