To market, to market to buy a fat pig.

To market, to market to buy a fat pig.

Home again, home again, jiggity-jig.

My Grannie always recited this poem to us.  I had an idealistic view of what the market should be like.  I’ve spent hours watching the Food Network and the Travel Channel.  It seems that when travelling to another country, going to the market is one of the major attractions.   The market is where you can pick out the freshest local produce and fresh fish and meats.  As a young girl, I tagged along with my Grandfather to the vegetable stand on Saturdays.  The stand used to be across from the National Youth Library and it was one of my favorite things to do.  People would come to pick out their fresh vegetables.  My Grandpa would laugh and joke with them.  It was all around an awesome experience.  Later, my Padringho (Portuguese for Godfather) owned a fruit and vegetable truck.  I also would go to work with him on Saturdays, sometimes with my siblings as well.  We would help pick out the produce and put it on the scale to weigh it.  We would carry bags of fresh fruit and vegetables into the houses of the elderly. Their faces lit up when they received their fresh produce.  We were allowed to eat the apples and carrots.  I get a warm feeling when I think of these cherished childhood memories.

As we set off for the market in Saint Marc, Haiti, I know that I am not about to relive childhood memories.  I try to prepare myself emotionally for what we are about to witness.  I already know that there are mud pies for sale at the market. I try to imagine what it must be like to be so hungry that you eat mud to stave off the nagging hunger pains in your belly.   I try to imagine how it must feel to see your children hungry for food but have nothing to give them.  I consider the fact that I had nothing to do with where I was born.  Why was I chosen to live a life where food was never a worry?  I can hear the words of my father ringing in my ears ‘Eat all of your dinner, there are starving children in Africa who would love to eat that food’.  I feel pangs of guilt as I remember my rebellious teenage response ‘Well send it to Africa then’.  I’m not preparing myself well as my thoughts are only causing me more internal turmoil.  As we draw nearer to the market, I dig deep and find what’s left of my inner strength.  There are people everywhere.  There are motorbikes everywhere.  As we get out of the back of the truck, I’m noticing that it isn’t that easy to breathe.  The whole town is just a big dust cloud.  Madiha mentions that she has her inhaler with her and I’m so relieved because I can’t imagine how I will walk through the market without choking.  Phillip comes over and gives us instructions.

• Everyone is to stay close together
• Nobody is to wander off
• It’s easy to get lost
• All cameras need to be kept in our bags
• If we want a picture, get Onel who’s Haitian to take it for us
• Do NOT eat anything from a street vendor….ever

It’s very hot and there isn’t much breeze which I actually take as a blessing because I don’t want even more dust in my face.  I’m impressed by the size of the market.  I see women with perms in their hair and men with gold chains around their necks.  They are few in number but I still wonder if perhaps some people are doing better financially than the majority.  We find a vendor selling prescription drugs.  Yes, he just had a huge basket full of prescription drugs; no doctor, no pharmacist, no FDA, no rules or regulations.  Bernie, being the pharmacist in our group, picked out a bunch of things that the children needed.  I bought a couple of baby bottles for baby Majine in the orphanage for $1 each. A woman reaches out and runs her fingers down my arm.  Perhaps she had never seen a ‘white’ person before.  As we walk through the market, motorbikes are riding through as well.  If you don’t move, you get hit.  I got struck on the arm by the handlebars of one bike.  It was slight but it reminded me to keep moving and stay out of the way!

We make our way to the fresh produce section of the market.  I am using the word fresh very loosely.  If you have a weak stomach, you may want someone else to read this for you and summarize it.  There are stands with onions, garlic, tomatoes, and carrots. There are flies all over the vegetables.  Some of the stands have dogs lying underneath them.  I’m not sure if they are dead or alive as they are so sickly looking.  Some of the vegetables are just laid out on a burlap cloth on the ground.  I almost get knocked down by a man with a wheelbarrow.  As I stagger to the left to try and avoid him, I just miss stepping on a lady’s carrots.  She yells at me in Creole.  I have no idea what she’s saying but I can only imagine! Press on! I need to get out of here.  Before we see the meat, the smell permeates the air and physically assaults my nose.  The flies are like vultures on a dead carcass in the desert. They buzz around my head and sound like beetles. Meat is laid out for display and it is completely rotting.  The smell of decaying death surrounds us bringing us to the forefront of reality in Haiti.  I’m not sure if I should breathe out of my mouth or out of my nose.  I’m afraid to inhale or ingest a fly.  There is beef, chicken and pork for sale.  I did see a fresh chicken and hog. A lady carried a live chicken by its feet and another woman marched her hog through the market, holding it by its tail. With no refrigeration or coolers, even that meat won’t be fresh for long.  The hardest sight for me was to see my favorite food rotting in bowls.  There were several stands with rotting fish, smoked fish, and rotting shrimp.  A lady pushes her dirty finger through her shrimp counting them to see how many she has left.  I wonder how many people die from starving and how many people die from eating food that could kill you.  We talk about it.  David asks how long you would have to cook that meat to kill everything that is growing in it.  I don’t even want to think about it.

An old lady with no teeth desperately tries to sell her mud pies.  I figure it was the most successful day she ever had at the market.  We each bought a bag of mud pies for $1 per bag.  None of us would dare eat these as they are most likely made with contaminated water, not to mention they are made out of real mud.  We all just want to bring them home as a symbol of what life is really like and the challenges that the Haitians face.

Today I went to the grocery store in Bermuda.  Everything is truly fresh in the strict sense of the word. I walked through the aisles almost getting sick in the meat section.  It will be a very long time before I can put the visual images of the market aside.  Again, I feel utterly sad and at the same time, extremely grateful for the ease and luxury that is my life.

Originally Posted on March 9th 2012 at http://rachaelburrows.wordpress.com/

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