Guest Post from Mom

I asked my family members if they might be willing to write down some of their reflections about my time here in Mexico as they see it, especially after having visited me over the New Year holiday. Here's the first post in that series, written by my mom.

My family likes to give me grief for wanting to go shopping on vacation. Actually, I hate to shop in the American sense--wandering aimlessly in a mall, or flying through the grocery store to collect items on a list. But I do love visiting the places where artisans work and sell their wares, where people labor to sell what they have cultivated to provide for their families.

While tenaciously refusing the family’s accusation that I am shopper, I admit that I best experience a new location or culture by seeing what the local people are making and selling. I try to avoid the shops geared for tourists and seek out the vendors selling handmade items. So when we were told the members of an artist’s cooperative were going to be visiting where we were staying, I was ecstatic. We first gathered for introductions, hearing each artisan’s name and a description of their craft, an explanation of how the co-op works to find fair trade buyers. Then we visited each artisan’s table, heard more details of their creative process, and found ourselves buying something from each artist--both because their goods were amazing, and because we simply found the artists endearing. We heard stories about absent family members who had made woven wool rugs and palm baskets, about children as young as 6 learning the family’s embroidery trade, and about a couple who travel to Guatemala several times a year to bring the extended family’s textile art to this co-op--where the selling price of their clothing, bags, scarves and belts provided something closer to a living wage--and sending the money back to Guatemala.

I know that in Cuernavaca, most people are just trying to scrape by, with varying degrees of success. But as one who has always wanted to make a living as an artist or crafter, I have experienced the thrill of a customer falling in love with something I have made, and the agony of a person examining my creation, and with a an unimpressed shrug, walking away empty handed. So I found these artisans to be not only creative, but courageous. Laying out one’s handmade work is a bit like bearing one’s true self, not knowing if others will embrace or reject us. These brave artists unveil their goods, knowing that the uninformed will think they can get a better deal elsewhere, although a mass-produced imitation is often made with far less quality and skill. The artists bring their work to market, and ask a still-modest price that not only reflects the value of the item itself, but the skill and time taken to make it. And in displaying their life’s work, in bearing their soul, they know that what others see cannot be hidden again. How brave to say, "This is what I create, and who I am. Take it or leave it."

Kat also led us on what is known as the “Cuernavaca Quest”, including two shopping experiences--one at the “Mega” (equivalent to a Mexican Wal-Mart), and the other at the Mercado, the market. We had a list of items to price by quantity, including rice, beans, cooking oil, toilet paper, chicken, a backpack, and women’s jeans. At the Mega, the parking lot was full, items were easy to find in the well lit, clean, organized store with shopping carts, wide aisles, and well dressed customers buying an assortment of necessities and luxuries. Buying in kilos with pesos, we weren’t sure that the prices were desirable, but one could certainly buy almost anything there.

At the Mercado, we were shoved into a dark, cramped maze of stalls with an assortment of goods, some we couldn’t identify. The food items were laid out in the open on tables without Mega’s sterile cellophane packaging. Shoppers carried their own baskets and were limited to what they could carry home on the bus and store in their small homes. If a family lacks the ability to safely store perishable goods, shopping must be done on a daily basis. I saw baskets with a few pieces of meat, a pair of sandals, beans, corn, a mango, and one roll of toilet paper. Since I grew up in Atlanta, I was unprepared for some of the produce we saw: whole pig heads, sides of beef, pigs’ feet, entire chickens hanging with only the feathers removed, and organ meats of every variety. Kat’s father was raised on a farm, so these were familiar sights and pleasant memories for him. For those we passed, the experience seemed to be a social event as they greeted neighbors and friends while they shopped. We were able to locate the same items on the list that we carried through the Mega, often in smaller quantities, but prices per-pound were higher.

In Cuernavaca, as it is in the US, it seems that the well-off have easy access to the more desirable goods, in greater quantity, at better prices. For the people we observed, their ability to acquire “stuff” is directly related to the homes and neighborhoods in which they live--those with an already comfortable life have a pleasant shopping experience, while those living under the weight of limited income have the added burdens of transportation difficulties, fewer choices, smaller quantities, and higher prices, each an additional stone laid upon the already crushing load of poverty. And so it was with a mixture of emotions we purchased treasures to take home. We bought art, jewelry, clothing, and crafts for a fraction of what they are worth--but we were supporting the artisans, weren’t we?  We filled extra suitcases with luxuries for ourselves and friends that the makers themselves couldn’t afford--but we were helping them improve their quality of life, right?  Isn’t that right?