Learning to Shop in the Village

John's point wasn't, I sensed, simply a lesson in village economics.

When we moved to Mexico in 1976, I didn't regret leaving behind the Alpha Beta Supermarket, the 7-11 quick-stop, or Newport Mall. I had no qualms at saying good-by to the traffic on the South Coast highway, or the swiftly disappearing charms of Laguna Beach, California. And I was especially weary of watching the heavy machinery gobbling up trees and slicing off the tops of gentle hills only to make way for more flimsy wooden boxes, destined to topple in a few years. Totally content to turn my back on the sights and sounds of southern California in the final quarter of the last century, I yet sensed I had a great deal to learn about my newly chosen homeland. Where all had been too boringly familiar, now I was a stranger in a fascinating but often incomprehensible new country.

Many of the village stores used to offer what seemed to be only a very few items for sale, and there were often no signs advertising their wares. The villagers simply knew where to go when they needed something. At Navarros Popular Abarrotes, a number of clerks were kept scurrying with the customers orders, from the narrow front counter, to the vast bodegas at the rear, and back again with the requested items. Near the doors, in front of the counters, large barrels cradled the basics of beans, grains, soaps, etc. But I learned I must speak up if I wanted candles, nuts, raisins, matches. Since few things were already packaged, I also learned to ask for purchases by amount or weight. Almost never was I met with that discouraging phrase, No hay.

During the early months, I often was accompanied by our friend John. He had already lived in the village for a number of years, and I couldn't have wished for a better guide. The day he accompanied me to the Deportista, on the village plaza, I was in search of petroleum lamps.

The elderly owner of the Deportista, upon hearing my request for the lamps, creaked to an upright position and rose from his small, hand carved chair in what seemed to me an otherwise empty establishment. Poco a poco, bit by bit, he began to search and then retrieve the various components of a petroleum lamp. The glass base repositories for the fuel were hidden deep under the worn wooden counter. The delicate, curvaceous chimneys were lifted from a dusty shelf far at the back and given a gentle swipe with a cloth. And finally a nearby drawer produced the necessary mechón, or wick, in a roll which I would then cut to the required lengths. . .

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