Some Humbling Humbleness, OR How To Fool Yourself Into Believing You Are A Ninja (No, You Really ARE! Really!)

Today marked visit number two to the market for my ethnography project that I’ll be presenting to my anthropology class in six weeks. R and I went a couple of weeks ago to get an idea of how the market operated. And then we went to Raffalo’s and drank beer, because dangit! lookin’ at people is HARD. Today I dragged my feet at getting started, but I knew that if I caved and stayed home I would feel useless and besides, R gave me some money to bribe some people to talk with me make purchases while starting some meaningful conversations about their lives, so I could hardly say no to that!

Imaginary strategy: walk around, make new stall owner best friend and get introduced to all the coolest of stall social circles, while gaining so much information that I can barely keep up with all the writing (oh, and magically learn Spanish by osmosis), write stunning and insightful paper on how the market plays a role in family life, gracefully receive thunderous applause from class at presentation, thumb nose at professor.

Let’s see how that plan worked out, shall we?

I paid my $1 at the gate and spent the first half an hour wandering around the stalls, too nervous to even take out my camera, let alone actually talk with anyone. I bought a silver bowl for another dollar, but couldn’t think of anything to say to the guy so, I shoved it in my bag and scuttled away. I checked out the stuff for sale at a couple of stalls, but maintained the scuttle away tactic whenever a stall owner showed the slightest intention of walking towards me or talking to me. (Because, what was I going to SAY??!!)

After I had seen every stall (read: the stall floors and shoes of all the people), I decided that the ninja photo attack was the next step. I took out my camera and took some meaningless, unfocused “candid” shots of some very important “stuff.” I held the camera down in what I assumed was a very stealthy, nonchalant pose and snapped away. Some VERY nice sky pictures made their appearance. I did actually get a nice picture of a woman at a stall talking with another woman holding a baby, so WIN there. I was trying to take some pictures at this stall that sold antique-y type stuff when the guy manning the stall started to look a little funny at me, so I guess I need to work on my ninja photo sneakiness. Scuttle, scuttle, scuttle. RUNAWAY! More ninja shots, then flash of brilliance! R and I need brackets for the coffee table we’re building, I’ll ask the guy at the antique-y place. We totally bonded over that sneaky photo thing. Totally.

So, I ask him if he has any brackets, and he looks politely quizzical. And so I use more hand gestures, and the same freakin’ words. He adds a raised eyebrow and asks if they’re for decoration. So, I think, this situation needs a picture, I will draw a picture (nota bene: my drawing skills have left people in frustrated tears, and by people, I mean me). I sketch a quick drawing and he says no, they don’t have anything like that. But, AW-yeah, I talked to someone!

I meandered through a couple more stalls, admiring the jewelry and fabric. Stopped by the stall I like to call the “spiritual stall.” They have all these saint’s candles, incense, sage, rosaries and rocks that you burn to cleanse the air. I stopped here the last time that R and I came here and talked with the woman about what everything was for. She had this enormous bottle filled with an amber liquid, and when I asked what it was she told me that it was patchouli. Seriously, a HUGE bottle. She said that people use it for general cleaning. Now, I love the smell of patchouli, but damn! that is a serious patchouli user there.

After a couple more pictures, shot from the hip toward random people eating around the food trucks, I bought some chili covered peanuts from a young guy who was possibly more uncomfortable than me (so, scratch that whole talk to someone else thing) and decided to call it a day and go home. But not before designing a game plan for the following week: map the stalls. There are a couple of unique stalls, but also a few that sell the same sort of things- shoes, makeup, hardware type stuff. So, I’ll come again next week and count and map the different types of stalls, and hopefully, maybe, probably even talk with someone else. (Did you notice all the qualifiers that I snuck in there?).

So, let’s see:

Actual strategy: shamble along and get a very detailed memory of the asphalt, take ninja-style photos because I am (not) oh so stealthy about it, possibly annoy very nice man while repeatedly asking for something that he doesn’t have, use precious bribe make friends money to buy delicious snack, devise brilliant plan for next visit (and sneak out patting self on back for new plan, thus releasing self from further work today), thumb nose at professor.

Very productive day, indeed.

Market: Win for the day.

Elizabeth: E for effort and getting dressed.