Market Morning in Oaxaca
“I followed a woman carrying a basket of marigolds through three wrong turns.”
The smell of copal and fresh tortillas at six in the morning. I followed a woman carrying a basket of marigolds through three wrong turns before I found the good stall — the one in the back, near the herb section, run by an elderly woman and her daughter, who charge more than the other stalls and are worth it.
Oaxacan markets have a different organization to them than markets further north. The categories blur: the herb section shades into the medicine section, which shades into the section that sells things you can't quite classify. At one point I bought something for a cold I don't have because the woman selling it seemed certain I would need it.
I ate memelas standing up, watching a man in a cowboy hat negotiate the price of a live turkey. The turkey had opinions.
There's something about markets that is the opposite of the internet, and I mean that in the best possible way. Everything here is material. The things on the stalls exist in space, have weight and smell and season. The transactions are between people who can see each other. Nothing is optimized.