Market of Santo Domingo October 8, 2021
I am having my first frank talk with a Tzotzil woman, and it is brutal. She is selling bags of popcorn for 5 pesos outside the Santo Domingo market, and her merchandize is quite popular this morning. I wait my turn. Moms in light woolen shawls and plastic sandals tend the street-side fire, while a daughter sits on a milk crate with a pad and pen, perhaps taking notes on me even as I take notes on her.
“Una bolsa, por favor.” I would like one bag. Please.
“Siete pesos,” says the lady. Seven, not five.
“Cinco antes,” I remind her.
“Si, pero siete ahora.”
“Desde cuando?” Since when?
“Ahora.” It was five pesos for a bag before, but, starting now, it is 7. Maybe 8, if you keep asking. This, in the tourist trade, is called a hospitality tax. The mere sight of my face raised the price on the desired item. A tax, yes, on my gringo ass. Hospitality it is not, but no one is getting paid for hospitality around here.
I have learned to be more discerning about which markets get my business. My closest produce man was overcharging me by 20% per papaya, until he was exposed to me by close Mexican sources. Needless to say, Mr. Produce-man has lost my papaya business, unless, of course, it is raining and I am trying to get home fast. In this way, he will learn that profiling comes at a cost, roughly 40 pesos per papaya, which some of us are able to pay.
My searches for fresh meat are more cost-friendly, but quality is another matter. Bacon here is nothing more than fatty ham lying to itself. As for beef, the only way to render it tender is to turn it into ground beef, flatten it in a tortilla press, and then incinerate it. Cows and pigs and vegans are surely happy that I am sharing this with a wider audience.
Spices are sold only in bulk at one particular shop, and one is never quite sure what is in the bin. Bay leaves look like ordinary leaves, smell like nothing, and taste like they come from a pile of branches on the sidewalk. The mint also appears remarkably un-mint-like, as if the harvesters are after best approximations rather than the real thing. The cinnamon is similarly flavorless, its brittle pale bark lacking the rich redness of Asiatic versions. Macadamia nuts are on sale today, but I would need to buy a hammer and pliers to open the shells.
I leave the spice shop with a backpack heavy enough for a Marco Polo expedition. I have never carried so many spices on my back. I think I have a half-gallon of powdered cinnamon. I have a compost pile’s worth of bay leaves. Laurel is what it is called, and a river laurel branch is what it looks like, I hope not from the banks of the manure-brown Rio Amarillo. I am putting it in my beef stew tonight. I wish I had started boiling the meat last week.
Given my shopping frustration, it was not the best time for the Tzotzil to inform me of my special price for a bag of popcorn. Two pesos is ultimately not that important to me, but this is precisely why the little lady with metal teeth treats me with such contempt. My faulty sense of value and disregard for frugality ought to cost me dearly. It does. 2 pesos more.
Back during the revolution, Te-por-ocho was the affordable choice for impoverished alcoholics. Tea was 5 centavos or less, but for an extra few, totaling 8 centavos, the hot drink came with a shot of booze. The term for those street drunkards who remember a kinder world are Teporochos, or tea for 8’s. Today, outside the frenetic small-sales bustle of the market at Santo Domingo, a drunk man sleeps against the adobe wall of the church, while another sits on the sidewalk with a dirty cup, wailing for relief. The girl on the milk crate records something on her pad. The ladies selling corn pay the sad men no mind. They focus on the one willing to pay 10 for tea. Te por Diez.