Market Day

Market day is a pretty big deal in Guatemalan towns, as I would imagine that it is in most towns in the developing world. It's the day that all the vendors in the region come to the chosen town to sell food, produce, clothes, house supplies, animals, trees, pirated CDs/DVDs ... pretty much anything, but the quantity and quality of products and vendors definitely varies depending on the town. In Chahal, it was Wednesdays, but I never really went. It wasn't very impressive, and the produce was disappointing. The main product was clothes: local traje and Chuck Norris t-shirts. Not really my look, even with my love for Walker Texas Ranger.

(Example of a vendor of local traje, but not Chahal's traje)

This is a reason why I like Sija. Market Day (I capitalize it because it's like a holiday) is every Sunday, and it's huge. Today was an even bigger deal than usual because Friday was the inauguration of the new three-story indoor market, thus it was the first Market Day in the spiffy new building. It was fantastic. The market still spilled into the streets, but it wasn't as crazy and filthy because the make-shift locales were gone so there was more space to walk and to see around you.

(Manuela, my vegetable lady, in her stall in the old market)

(The new market, the park, and the clock tower -- the setting for Market Day)

I particular enjoyed a few of today's vendors. First, there was a man walking around selling something that must have had to do with cats because he kept on meowing. Then there was a man offering one single remedy to cure anything from the cough to tuberculosis. The last one, and my favorite, I found on my walk home with a group gathered around him.

You see, there are some vendors that tell and/or show you why you want to buy their product. This man did an impressive job. The trick is that you don't tell the people what you're selling until the end. It's like a joke and its punch line. You allude to the identity of it by talking about the problems that a potential customer would fix with the magical unknown product, but you don't reveal it.

When I walked up, he was talking about how friends aren't friends unless they take you to Pollo Campero (fast food chicken). Then he attached a small red rag to a large shell and showed us that Coca-Cola will stain the rag. Alcohol won't clean it. Neither will water. Potato juice will.

During this process, he was talking about how hard the sun is on the eyes and how these friends of his that take him to Pollo Campero can't see very well. Then he squirted water into his eyes and said that it didn't clean them.

Can you guess what he was selling?

Eye drops.

Do you see the obvious connection between the red rag and our eyes? None of those other products could get the red out of the rag (except potato juice... I was waiting for him to squirt that into his eyes). But with the eye drops, the color faded noticeably.

Well shit, if those eye drops can get the red out of a rag, they must be able to get the red out of my eyes! I'm glad I discovered them before I started pouring coke and alcohol and potato juice into my eyes.

People literally started lining up to have him squirt this miracle potion into their eyes and cure their "glass eyes" as he had referred to them. Did I? you wonder. I hate to disappoint, but no. I snuck away at that point before he could force them on me, thus I do not know how many bottles he sold to the crowd. But I can assume that he did pretty well today.

Not a bad Sunday. I'm looking forward to next week already.


What I bought today, to give you an idea of the possibilities:

1 pair of jellies (those cheap plasitic shoes from elementary school) -- Q15
2 lbs. chicken (chopped up right in front of me) -- Q22
1 oz. of a spice (not sure what) -- Q2
6 peaches -- Q5
1 lb. apples -- Q3
2 stalks of celery -- Q2
6 carrots -- Q2
2 guiskil -- Q2
1 lb. onion -- Q3
1 red pepper -- Q2
1 cantaloupe -- Q8
1 pair of used baby jeans (to patch my jeans with) -- Q5
2 hand towels -- Q10
1/2 lb. pasta -- Q3
1 large trash can (to make compost in) -- Q60

Total: Q144 = $18 (Q8 = $1)

Result: Homemade chicken noodle soup for the rest of the week, hole-free jeans, properly decomposing organic waste, cool shoes, the potential to dry my hands, and some fresh fruit to snack on. Can you do that for $18?

(Examining the fruit)