Market Shock

Today’s adventure was to the open air market for provisions. Although there is a large grocery store here in Antigua, many of the items are imported and tend to be somewhat expensive. The city has an impressive and intimidating open air market: about 3 acres full of stalls and tables with narrow paths winding through. Near the outside, one can find all varieties of produce: pyramids of tomatoes or bananas or pineapple, piles of jalapenos and onions and cilantro, stacks of potatoes and green beans and lumpy squashes. As one meanders into the depths of the maze, the market reveals aisles of meat; various animal parts suspended from stalls, heaps of raw chicken, and strings of sausages. We wandered for an hour, getting lost in the twists and turns; stumbling over mangy dogs, hopping over puddles of water, and generally looking dazed and confused. All in all fairly overwhelming, and after finally navigating our way out, we realized that most of our purchases could have been made at the edges. I still can’t figure out what differentiates the vendors – although one may have cilantro and another garlic, they’ll both have tomatoes and onions and seem virtually indistinguishable. My mission is to figure out how Guatamaltecos choose which stall to frequent.
Is it price? Is it quality? Is it buddies? In any case, we ended up buying some beautiful fresh produce: an onion, garlic, a jalapeno, a large papaya, a bunch of bananitas (the small sweet guys), green beans, potatoes, half dozen tomatoes, 3 large chicken breasts and a kilo of blackberries all for less than $10! And we’re fairly certain that we paid too much because we didn’t bargain.

Eating is interesting - I’m struggling to cook in a kitchen with limited supplies. And after the close-up views of raw meat at the market, Kelsey & Larissa declared they were going to be vegetarians while we’re here. They don’t understand that all meat starts out the same (I’m pretty certain slaughter houses are not too lovely either), we’re just sheltered from the disgusting reality of seeing the meat on the animal. It reminds of being asked by a Sri Lanka Villager, “Who butchers the chicken in your village?” How could I begin to describe mass production, Styrofoam trays, and plastic wrapping? I managed to put together a tasty dinner last night: oven roast chicken with onion, boiled potatoes with butter and garlic, green beans and blackberry cobbler for dessert. The girls even dropped their meat objections after tasting the tender chicken; I don’t know what it is, but chicken is really good here. Maybe it has to do with never being frozen or being generally fresher?

We just took an assessment test for Spanish school. I struggled more than I thought I would; didn’t realize how much I am avoiding conjugating future tense by using the cheating tense: “Yo voy a_____ “ (I’m going to _____”.) We’ll start classes on Monday and hopefully the verbs will come back to me quickly!