El tianguis

Greg sez:

This morning, Wednesday, J & I went to the weekly tianguis, or outdoor market, about 3/4 mi. down the road in Ajijic. It's a colorful carnival of sights, sounds, and savors, including vendors of meat, fish, bakery, veggies, and fruit as well as of ropa (clothes), kitchen utensils, knickknacks, music, and beggary.

The beggars are the grease in this soapy water, of course, and must be cut, you'd think if you were there. They are selling their beggary itself, of course, and our sympathy for their condition, which may be ancient, wizened, deformed (they expose their hideous leg stumps or plump on their waist, on a piece of straw mat, as there is nothing below the waist).

Now you can't carry enough cambio (change) for all the beggars in Christendom. And it soon palls -- the stretched out hands, the bleating cries, the grating graciases.

Still, you do feel enough of the automatic shame that any privileged gringo would feel in the face of such poverty and beggary. How is it possible for you, gringo, to have so much and not to share while we have so damned little?

Jen shops for dates in the tianguis.

The r:egular vendors are getting by through their efforts, selling their share of fruits and veggies, for example, in this fertile land. Today J & I purchased, among other things, dirt cheap:

• pepinos (cucumbers)
• tomates (tomatoes)
• cebollas (onions)
• lechuga (lettuce)
• aguacates (avocados)
• pimientos (peppers, both jalapeno and poblano)
• una exprimadora (a press for squeezing limes, that is, for our margaritas: la hora feliz, happy hour, begins at 5 pm: c'mon by!)

Photos to follow, when I can get them off my camera (forgot proper cable or card reader).

Salud! Prosit! (Both gringos and beggars.)