Semana Dos

01/20/2020 – Monday Market in Coscomatepec!

Monday was amazing. We started it off at 7am with two Materia y Sostenibilidad classes, in which we got to introduce organic chemistry and do a really fun activity with the kids involving diaper powder (sodium polyacrylate) and water that seemed to make the water “disappear”. The kids seemed to have a lot of fun with it and told us how much they enjoyed it, so I was super happy by 9am to know that they were excited, at least, and hopefully a bit about organic chemistry.

After that, we skipped our classes and were off to Coscomatepec for “breakfast” (basically the only meal I needed during the day) with Miss Isa, a teacher we are supporting and her very sweet daughter, Andrea. In Coscomatepec we went straight for el Centro, which hosted the traditional courtyard surrounded by a church, government building, and restaurants to the side. In the middle, however, was something very special. On Mondays, there’s an outdoor market there all covered up by temporary tents. Under the tents is a bustling world – women frying empanadas, tortillas, gorditas, etc in these huge plates with oil in the middle which were surrounded by food that you can pick up on its edges, people sitting at bench tables eating and chatting. Pieces of lamb (el borrego) hung for sale, which was soooo delicious in some blue corn tortilla tacos. I also had some (not to be dramatic but) life changing mole tacos. The flavor was sweet + 100 more tastes. When we had thoroughly filled ourselves with lamb based things, some soup, fried tepejilote, and mole, we set off. We walked through the fruit and other vendors, stopping to try some crickets on the way (salty and not too bad). Finally, we walked past where they had animals like chickens, lambs, and very cute puppies to buy in order to feed at home and eventually eat (well, hopefully not the puppies!). Here instead of people just looking at us strangely like at the supermarket or other, many of the vendors seemed to be calling us gueras, o madres or something of the sort, which Andrea told us was in a type of way a compliment, but it felt quite strange.

Our next stop was the panaderia, where we had been encouraged to go by all the kids who heard we were going to Coscomatepec. And they were absolutely right. We got to go down to the kitchen, which involved a huge fired oven that a man happened to be placing conchas into at that time, and many men working the dough. There were so many breads to taste, most of them relatively sweet and semi-firm. Unfortunately, we ate them too fast for me to get a picture of them 😦 On the way back we chatted with Andrea a lot and enjoyed the ride home once again, which was a beautiful route through los cerros of Veracruz, passing through Monte Blanco y Fortin de los Flores, which was named for its wonderful ability to grow flowers.

Afterwards, we hung out with Andrea a bit and walked around town while she told us about some legends of Cordoba – how the town was founded by men who turned into pigeons, how la mulata de Cordoba was a woman who was half African and half native american who was envied for her beauty. She ended up being jailed for being a witch, but she painted her escape via a boat on her jail cell wall. She also told us about some others that were a bit creepier and did not end so well… We then ran into some of her friends at a cafe, so we met some of them and had smoothies and chatted. Finally, we returned to the residences where they stayed and chatted for a little while and then headed out. A marvelous Monday.