A Visit to the Market

Life in Netherworld of San Cristobal, Mexico

Author’s Note: This piece was originally begun in February 2022, whilst I was living in San Cristobal, Mexico. It got abandoned part-way through but is now complete.

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In many ways, the EU is a fine thing. A coming together of European nations, in the spirit of self-protection and democracy, in an otherwise rapidly-changing world. The multitudinous layers of its bureaucratic administration ensure that nothing changes too quickly. Standards are upheld here and care has been institutionalised in every recess of its cavernous constitution. There are no Trumps here and no Putins either. No one will rock your boat too hard. Nothing will change too quickly. If you’d been living in some war-scarred, warlord or oligarch-riddled hell-hole somewhere further east or south, you might very well dream of being able to start again in the EU. A place where you can breathe out.

But there are also things have been lost in all this progressive, institutionalised democracy and caring. And one of those things is markets.

I don’t mean the “common market,” global trade or anything like that. What I mean is those semi-permanently-covered edifices where, for millennia in some cases, local people have sold their wares.

Even in the markets of the casco viejos and centro historicos of Valencia or Rome, these days you will find increasing amounts of goods sold pre-packed in boxes and, horror of horrors, you might even be able to pay contactless.

But not here in Chiapas, Mexico. Not in the ancient, sprawling mercado viejo of San Cristobal de las Casas, more properly known as the Mercado Municipal José Castillo Tielemans. No, no one is going is going to take cards here. And you can forget about trying to pay with a five hundred peso note too.

The mercado viejo truly sprawls. It sprawls in a way that only a market that has evolved down the decades can, unhindered by plans drawn up by some government committee to decide just how a local market “should be.”

Let’s go in.

A part of me would love to take photos. But somehow this feels invasive - that whole tourist thing - it has an almost colonial feel to it for me. So I mostly restrain myself but will post what I have and a few others from the streets nearby.

The central area is brick and mortar and only half-occupied, perhaps because the rent here is higher than in the outlying sections. It is dark. Large sections are devoted to selling red meat. Longanizas and chorizos are drooped over metal bars. Great slabs of chicharon, some perhaps half a square metre in area, are piled high. Raw meat and innards lie on the slab whilst dogs lounge wistfully on the floor, hoping to be thrown a morsel. Saleswomen flash their eyes at you, with their razor-sharp, ancient-looking knives in hand. This is meat. Real meat at its most visceral. No one is trying to make it look anything other than what it is.

Before I can get into this central area, however, I pass by a line of small children, each holding bags of vegetables. Some jump, or block your way, to attract your attention, whilst crying out - tomates a diez pesos, tomates a diez pesos! Once past the kids, there is an anteroom of women whose stalls are piled high with sweetbreads and pastries. To a sweeping glance, it might appear that both sugared and unsugared products are here on sale, as would be the case in Europe. But, as anyone familiar with Mexican markets will know, ask for something sin azucar and they will look at you uncomprehendingly.

Before I reach the kids and the anteroom, I weave my way through the myriad stalls outside. An old man sits across the path, begging. His arm looks strangely curled as though the victim of some misfortune. Leaning in, I notice that actually he’s cradling his mobile in this arm, and scrolling through pages of WhatsApp emoticons, whilst his other reaches out for pesos. Perhaps he’s looking for the right icon to tell a friend how good a day he’s having.

Out here in the sunshine, in front of the market proper, Mayan women squat and sell vegetables, dried tortillas, fried platanos and eggs, whilst gossiping merrily in Tzotzil with each other. The odd loner scrolls quietly on her phone, apparently unconcerned she might miss a sale. This seems characteristic of the market. The stall-holders each navigate the fine line between trying to sell you something and retaining the indigenous pride they carry lifelong in their grounded and straightforward way of being.

These open air stalls sit out front of the main entrance to the bricks and mortar part of the market. This central building is then surrounded on the three remaining sides by covered walkways, with stalls each side, that are laid out in a vaguely grid-like fashion and that stretch a hundred metres or so each way. Various alleys from this area start as covered parts of the market and then gradually peter out into just regular little streets, some lined with taxis to take shoppers home.

Exiting from the main covered area and the meat sellers, and into an area covered with old bits of tarpaulin to the left, I come across lines of fruit sellers followed by Mayan women selling fresh chickens. The chickens are laid out on their backs, plucked and with their heads hanging over the stall-front towards you. For some reason, the women who sell chicken all wear large amounts of make-up that gives them a strangely mystical appearance. In addition, each has her own distinct way of shouting out "pollo” to attract customers, quite a feat given that the word has only two syllables.

Common to old-style markets, specific businesses tend to cluster together. Red meat vendors are over here. Fruits here. Cans and packets of food here. Fish over this way. All manner of dried good are over on the far north side. Cheap women’s clothes are this way. There are areas filled with hairdressers. There are ancient slot machines that attract the pesos of the market men. Electrical bits and bobs are down this lane. Live chickens, ducks and turkeys are close to the exit towards the bus station. Stalls that sell tacos for only five pesos are opposite them.

This market is truly a remarkable phenomenon. All life is somewhere here. It has a subterranean feel to it, as though one is descending into the bowels of the earth to pay homage to an ancient ritual. Rarely do I let a day go by without coming to pay my respects and to reconnect with a way of life that traditional people have maintained for millennia.

The people of San Cristobal de las Casas have recently agreed to have a new, covered area replace the central part of the market and some of outlying parts. A part of me is appalled. Oh no, it’s creeping European-ism! But then I remember. This is their place and it’s up to them to decide. Southern Mexico is home to the Ejército Zapatista Liberaciòn Nacional (EZLN). Hundreds of thousands of locals will mobilise at the drop of a hat to take civil action against any perceived encroachment on their way of life that they don’t agree with that.

We could do with more of that in the West too.