El Pochote Market & Cinema
North and east from my apartment on Fiallo St., through the Zocolo, under tents and guy-wires, I walked to meet my new friend, Sharon, at an organic market called El Pochote, just north and east of Templo Santo Domingo. It had rained hard the night before and on the way I got drenched with at least a bucket of water. I looked back to see where the water came from and saw a woman poking a stick upward to release the water collected on top of a plastic tent. As I looked at her, she seemed to bear a silent look of terror on her face. She’s afraid of “susto,” I thought…afraid I would caste an evil spell on her. But that was just my interpretation, of course, having had very limited experience with health care for Zapotec and Mixtec migrants in Oregon. Unhappily, I continued on.
The market is very small and no one seemed to know where it was except a western-looking guy with an eastern European accent carrying some books. So an hour late, I finally caught Sharon leaving the market. We walked across the street to a bakery and bought some deep-fried peppers stuffed with chicken, nuts and I don’t know what else but it was fantastic…juicy and the flavors just kept coming and coming. Then she took me to see her roof-top apartment where, as a master gardener, she will raise plants and herbs. Nearby we visited the the Oaxaca Cultural Center that offers free art, music and photography classes within a beautiful old nunnery. I loved the feeling inside…children making art, practicing the piano…
Then we returned to the market where I bought some lead-free Mexican kitchen pottery for my apartment. We shared some mole enchiladas and a tostada “sandwich” and then watched part of the International Indigenous Film Festival (on extremely uncomfortable seats) that is being held at the Cine Pochote at the market site. Exhausted, we trudged home.
The next day Sharon visited me to see my apartment and then walked east to the nearby Mercado 20 de Noviembre where I bought a plastic shopping bag, some grapes, green beans and some perfectly formed green onions and cilantro to make salsa. Sharon was tired and getting a cold so she left for home, while I stopped and had a bowl of delicious menudo (tripe soup) before leaving.
Sharon says she will soon go with me to Mercado Abastos, so huge she says I can easily get lost, to the Women Artesans Of The Regions of Oaxaca cooperative for shopping and will take me to her favorite coffee shop.
When I returned to my apartment Gerardo’s cousin who lives downstairs, was delivering a set of T Fal cook-ware, some glass mixing bowls and a big bottle of purified water. I had only emailed Gerardo asking for those things that morning! Incidentally everyone drinks bottled water here. A young guy from Texas sitting next to me on the plane to Houston had been at the University of Oregon delivering a talk on toxicology. He told me the water here was full of arsenic. Incidentally, he said the water in the Willamette River in Oregon has a high level of arsenic also.
Hector, Sharon’s apartment manager, told her about a very good curandera (healer) so this week we will visit her and have a healing, sauna and massage.
Meanwhile, Gerardo, who wants to get a masters in tourism, has offered to drive me to nearby villages while we practice 30 minutes English for him and 30 minutes Spanish for me.
Later, checking email, I excitedly discovered that my old friend, Patricia Gutierrez, who married a Mexican national and lately moved to Mexico, will be driving here next week with her husband “to give me a hug” and get her mail that I brought from Oregon.
Someone else in an email asked if I thought the next president, at the upcoming election, will be good for Mexico. I know nothing yet about Mexican politics, and have to search out some good sources of information.
I have been making open pot “sheepherder’s coffee, in my new T Fal french “milk pot” like my dad used to make in sheep camp. I had forgotten how good it can be. (Whatever is a milk pot?!) But I need to find some coffee filters for my new coffee pot. People in Mexico drink Nescafe. Ugh! Never got used to it even after visiting Asia off and on for nearly four years. Also, I am having a hard time remembering to put TP in the basket instead of flushing it…
Now if I could just learn to use the buses!
Tags: Markets, Mexico, Oaxaca
Zoe