About the food here

For days I have been planning on writing a post about how damn good and fresh and cheap the food is here, how amazing the markets and little shops--all in walking distance, all relatively cheap--are, and then the other night G got really sick. And, most likely, the bug that kept running between bed and the bathroom for hours of attempted expurgation before we finally embarked for medical help in the middle of the night came from lettuce he’d bought at the market that day.

The central market where he went is labyrinthine and exciting and reminds me of Cairo or Damascus or maybe even parts of Beirut. There is an outdoor section, where people vend wares on blankets, under umbrellas. Then stalls, made of soft wood, set up under roofs of tarps and corrugated metal. A woman sells batteries, a man sells dried beans out of baskets, a woman sells tomatoes that she has piled in pyramids, and on and on. Then the food section, where a woman sells tamales, some women work behind ovens, scraping at piles of meat, and mysteriously brightly colored drinks in large clear plastic containers, large chunks of ice floating. And all over tiny stools to sit and eat at. Then there is the indoor part, all white ceramic tile and the smell of raw meat--a fish section, a pork section, a beef section. Any part you want. Cow head, anyone?

Besides that, there are tiny stalls a few blocks down the hill from our house, where a handful of vegetables and fruits are on display.

Then there are the special, the organic, the house-made things: a twice weekly organic market in the courtyard of an arts center just down the block where a few vendors sell healthy-looking greens, juicy berries, colorful roots, golden-yolked eggs, the handful of pink lily-looking flowers that still smell fresh after a few days on our dining room table. And a dairy shop, also down the street, where they sell all sorts of cheeses and raw yogurt, their amazing pineapple flavor in our fridge right now. Tangy and sweet and sour all at once. And a coffee place downtown, that's all fair-trade and organic and delicious, where the woman had us try raw cocoa beans when we bought our half kilo last week.

G's sickness lasted a very painful eight hours. It was the kind of sick where you feel like you might die, I think like the way I felt in Egypt that time after the koshary in the desert--or was it that time after the baba at the fancy Lebanese place? It was awful. But now after finding a decent all-night clinic, getting a shot, and taking some pills, the thing that possessed him is gone, and we're eating normally again. Big meal in the middle of the day, amazing smells coming from the kitchen now, as you see pictured above.

Meandering post, I know. Just trying to get some fluency going. Stuck on an awful short story rewrite these past couple days. It's killing me. Or at least it feels like it.

Visiting the Big City

Last weekend we descended the 2,000 or so meters and made the 1-hour bus-ride to Tuxtla, to visit G’s family and friends. While Sancris is colorful and airy and stone-built, Tuxtla is haphazard and hot and concrete. Not to say it wasn’t fun, but, all in all, this is where I’d rather be.

While we were away, we spent an afternoon with G’s niece and nephew, taking them for the most beautiful handmade popsicles I’ve ever seen. On a galavanting, meandering night with G’s friends, we went to a couple of a certain type of party, where people our age fill the front courtyard of a house with plastic tables and chairs and serve food and drink a lot of alcohol. Pretty bad reggae-tone music at the first, awful karaoke at another.

For lunch one day, we ate what is pictured above. In a “snack” bar with impossibly loud music and then a mariachi band, and all sorts of men singing along and everyone drinking, we feasted on a plate of slow cooked meat in adobo sauce, amazing black beans and fresh, hearty flour tortillas to go with. Before that we had a plate of fresh tomatoes, cilantro, and onion, as well as dried shrimp. Too salty for my taste. All washed down with a few shared pitchers of Sol doctored with lime and chili.

At amazing restaurant, G’s friends put one of the flip-flops he’d casually slipped off his feet into a crate of beer bottles on the ground. When we realized it was missing as we got ready to go, it was nowhere to be found. Shoeless, G took me to the home of some friends of his, a married couple who have shared a house for thirty years. From the street it looks like a concrete wall with graffiti, like a forgotten place, but inside it was filled with art and plants and books. They were nice.

G’s parents took us to one of those all-you-can-eat buffets, Mexican style. We were resistant but it was pretty damn good. I recall a past when I could do three or four plates at an occasion like that, but this time only managed one and a half.

Other than that, some insane cab rides, amazing street art, and finally seeing marimba park, a place full of people dancing G has always told me about. But we missed the people dancing part. We got there when they were milling about, but the gazebo in the center was cool, all the ancient benches lined up and facing it, like sun’s rays. Maybe next time.

More pics of our Tuxtla weekend here.

first day, new world

This is a picture of the street I will be living on for the next 2.5 mos. Arrived in San Cristobal last night as the sun was setting. The apartment G got for us is beautiful--full of ceramic and clay tiles, wood ceilings, airy, bright walls. The garden we share with the other houses in our complex:


Walked some around town today, saw the main squares, dipped into the market. The city is small, as far as I can tell and streets sit low under the stone sidewalks and houses that line them. There are too many cars on these ancient streets (G says about 400 years old), and so many old Beetles around, I've already revived the "punch buggy" game we used to play in Lebanon when we were younger, punching each other each time we sighted one of those fanciful-looking cars. It's actually pretty fun since G never played before and he takes their profligacy for granted.

The rest of the pics are here.

i am absent

...from this page but things keep on keeping on. the weather in san francisco is gorgeous again this weekend, though days end earlier and there is a nip in the air that sneaks up on you. and a man just walked into the cafe i am sitting in wearing a full leather ensemble--black leather pants, black leather button up shirt. i wonder if he's on his way to the folsom street fair, which is today. yesterday was lovefest. san francisco is all about the street parties lately. i went to one the other night. the 15th anniversary of critical mass here. enough for me for a while. so i am absent, sitting in a cafe, thinking about street parties and attempting to write.