i get it!

the other day, while searching for the ripest bananas and most exquisite avocados at my barrio's feria or famer's market in la florida, i had a season 5 tony soprano-esque epiphany. i figured it all, or at least some of it out. at least twice on this very blog here, i've ruminated on the theme of cost of living in chile. i have come to various conclusions, some of them hazy and erroneous (no one actually eats food, people live in their nikes) and some of them have been spot on (people have an ungodly amount of debt, a fair sum of chile's relatively large lower class are systemically robbed of upward mobility). but during my last visit, while eking out the best prices and freshest fresh at the feria, i realized at least one source of relief for the chilean working folk - buying produce at the markets.

while some staples (namely palta or avocado) are perennially expensive by chilean standards (about 1200-1500 pesos or $2-3 a kilo), you can score ridiculous deals on just about everything else if you put some time into it and, save your meats and cereals, stock your fridge for an entire week for less than $20. since i'm now de facto grocery lackey in my house, i've been deep in the shit for about 3 months. since this experience which i'm now ridiculously fond of has begun, i've encountered such baffling deals as 3 kilos of oranges for 80 cents, a mid-sized plastic bag full of tomatoes for about the same, and the most delicious 2 kilos of haas avocados for about $5. now i may not have been mr. mom back in california, but i've checked the facts and these prices are off the chain. food from the markets in chile is exponentially cheaper than food from united states grocery chains. seeing as how the majority of middle-lower class u.s. families shop in super markets and the majority of chilean middle-lower class families shop in bafflingly cheap ferias, i have now discovered at least one disparity that can explain how chileans still sport dc shoes, sony telephones, and almost reach their aspirations to live like middle class americans when they're making half the money. 40 cents for a bushel of carrots anyone?

did i mention that i'm an absolute fanatic of the experience itself? every woman at the feria is a reina (queen) and every dark skinned man (just me really) is a morrenito or negrito (browny or blacky respectively, affectionate terms i swear). if you go to the right markets, they're teeming with characters, vibrant competition and light hearts. darren "archie" archer always used to, and surely still does, refer to your run of the mill grocery store as "the market." i made fun of him on general principle, but once you see a real south american market it becomes even more of a misnomer. these places are what shopping should be like. i want to see more hacked up sting rays on the streets of california goddammit.

right as he took that swing i was trying to get close to get my shot and a piece of sting ray flesh landed on my leg, some sort of freak reflex had my arm jolt to itch the back of my head when it happened. anything is possible (at the feria), except skiing through a revolving door. rest in peace mitch, rest in peace sting ray.