"¡Vamos al Mercado!"

Abbie shares a journal entry:

On Saturday evening my mom, Charo, informed me that we were going to the market. We walked down the street and entered the Metro, a large chain supermarket. At first I was surprised because this was not what I expected the market to be. After walking around and grumbling at the prices, we soon left without buying anything.

“Now we’ll go to the market,” my mom informed me. Ahh. Apparently I was right. This was not actually the market.

However, getting to the real market, Mercado de Venezuela, was easier said than done. Since it was the evening before Mother’s Day, there were people everywhere. We had to cross Avenida Venezuela, where there was no stoplight or crosswalk. Combis honked, cars swerved around pedestrians, and buses squeezed themselves into the tiniest of spaces.

But these obstacles would not deter my mom from her mission. This petite but confident woman squared her shoulders, grabbed my hand and commanded, “Vamos!”

We ran across the street, dodging vehicles and other people, all without being honked at once. Success.

The market just appeared to be a large warehouse from the outside, but when I entered, I saw this was not the case. There were stands of vendors in every available space. There were clothes, fruits and vegetables, medicines, books and anything else you could possibly need, all displayed in an array of colors from floor to ceiling. As we walked through the building, my mom stopped and greeted people she knew, compared prices and showed me all of her favorite items.

She showed me different spices, a live cat that looks like Garfield at one stand, colorful bowls of prepared ají sauce, cardboard frames she likes to paint and give as gifts, and different types of rice and quinoa (and told me what each is used for). She also would stop at every fruit stand and quiz me on a different type of fruit to see if I knew what it was or not. Sometimes I was right, sometimes not.

When we approached a stand, she would greet the owners by name and ask how they were, and then ask the price of a few items. If she was satisfied, she would continue by rattling off her list of the items she wanted. When we were on a mission to find cream cheese, the pleasantries were cut short and she simply walked up and said, “Amigo, tienes crema de queso?” If they didn’t hear or were talking to someone else, she repeated herself until she got a response.

In order to buy something, my mom would tell the vendor what she wanted, whether or not there were other people there. This turned into multiple people shouting things all at once, but somehow the vendors were able to keep track of everyone’s requests.

A visit to this chaotic, lively and community-filled place has been one of my favorite experiences in Lima so far. On the way back, I was entrusted with the bag of a half dozen eggs. Somehow we managed to weave our way out of the halls in the market and back across Avenida Venezuela, and both we and the eggs arrived home in one piece.