Life of the market

Welcome to the colorful heady sights and sounds of Mercado 9th de Octubre. We're quickly finding that ten people go through a ton of food and some major grocery shopping is in order. I love introducing people to new places and cultures and watching them observe, process, and have fun with it. The role of the host, the guide, the teacher suits me well. For most of these guys the stimulation of the market compounded by the processing of new country, culture, language, life is probably something akin to sensory overload. Oh, how I love that feeling! Only there are we able to see so clearly. Open, unattached, no room for bias thought caught only in the action and moment. Free.

A blur of people. Small children running up and down the aisles. Wizened squat old woman sitting behind heaping fruit stands cajoling as you pass. Pina, aguacate, mora, mango....cinco por un dolar! Vision blurred in color and motion. Navigating the aisles of color like a bee in wide angle hexagonal double vision. Tasting the savory taste of slow cooked pork shaved right off a whole hog roasting on the aisle. Chancho de sevo, yapingachos, and puffed up choclo corn garnished with onions and cilantro. The crispy bubbled up skin is the best part. All washed down with a homemade coco batido shake sweet as nectar. Taste bud overload. The smells of sweet ripe and rotting fruit, slow cooked meat, and the faint smell of diesel exhaust lingering from the street combines into a strong aroma. Orafactory overload. And finally, the haggled murmuring, rebounding echoes of bustle and shuffle, and the shouts and squeles of children prick your ears distractedly. And the blur goes round you as you wander on giddy to the next eye candy of fruits.

It's the same as I left it last time. A riot of the senses.