Chris Goes to the Market

The rumbling in his tummy got Chris thinking he was hungry. Looking in the basket on the shelf where he kept his food, he realized there was not much there with which to make a yummy dinner. Grabbing the worn yellow bag that he bought when he first arrived in town, he stepped outside and made the five block walk to the local market, skipping over puddles in the cobblestone street so he wouldn’t get his feet wet.
He already had a meal in mind when he reached the market, and only needed a couple more ingredients. Ducking under the tarps that halfway kept out the everyday rain from the narrow walkways below, Chris made his way over to the little corner of the market he had gotten to know well since he had arrived in the new town. He liked this section of the market because he knew that most of the food sold in the little stalls was grown without using any chemical fertilizers or pesticides. How did he know? Well the tomatoes were smaller than the ones he’d seen sold at the supermarkets. Sometimes they weren’t even oval or round; same with the carrots, same with the chard, and same with the broccoli. Chris liked to eat what people were calling organic food. He had read some stories about how the chemicals used in the big farms are absorbed into the food and then eaten by people! He’d also heard about how these chemicals leak into the nearby rivers and streams, polluting the water that people use to clean and drink, and harming the rest of the plants and animals that use that water as well. Chris liked animals. He liked to look at them and pet them and play with them, if they’d let him. He also liked to climb trees and lay in the grass, and he got a sad feeling thinking about the trees and grass and animals dying. Not only that, but liked feeling healthy so that he could climb those trees and play in those streams, and wanted his friends to be healthy too so that he’d have some people to play with – that’s why he only tried to eat the natural food that didn’t have chemicals in it.
Chris loved the market. He felt alive walking through the narrow allies, ducking his head under the wet tarps and dodging puddles and people. He was the only one that had to duck his head – everyone else seemed just the right size to walk underneath without having to bend their back. There were so many people, so many colors, so many sounds, and so many smells. He felt excited in all of his senses. Each stall had different things to sell. One stall had a large collection of some the most amazing flowers he’d ever seen.



Chris passed by another stall with many sacks filled to the brim and then some with all sorts of colored beans. He imagined he was looking at a crayon box, or that he was in front of a life-size board game.



Then he passed by the fruit stands; there were pineapples, apples, bananas, guayabas, coconuts, grapes, papayas, and more different colored mangoes than he’d ever seen before. Each bucket of fruit was stacked in a perfect pyramid. The women, dressed in beautiful colored clothing, stood behind the stand, proud of their fruit pyramid making skills.



Finally, Chris arrived at one of the many vegetable stands. All of the big leafy green plants lay piled close together, and he carefully picked out the vegetables he wanted for his meal. A handful of chard – 2 pesos. A head of broccoli – 5 pesos. One of the things Chris loved too about the market was that the organic food was often times cheaper than the other food that had chemicals in it. He wondered why people would pay more for the food that harmed their bodies and the Earth. That didn’t seem right to Chris. And then he thought about the stores where he bought his food back in his home town. The organic food was always way more expensive than the other food. He wondered why the organic food in this market was cheaper, and also if the organic food in the stores back home would ever be able to sold for cheaper than the other food.



On his way back home, Chris passed by many other sights. There was a clown putting on a show for many people gathered together in the central square. Women dressed in beautiful shirts and skirts walked around offering people colorful scarves and belts. Someone leaned against a street light and beat a drum. Chris sat in the central square, watching all the different people and listening to all the different languages that people were speaking.







After a long while, the grumbling in Chris’ tummy reminded him of why he had left his house in the first place, so he picked up the worn yellow bag that held his fresh vegetables and walked the three blocks down the cobblestone streets back to his house to cook his dinner. Later, while Chris was eating his food, he felt very grateful to have a market with such colorful sights and sounds and such good food so close by. Everyone should have a market like this close by, he thought.