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h Marketplace Tehuantepec  . “Whether the men go to the fields or work in town,” wrote Covarrubias in 1946, “from dawn till sunset Tehuantepec becomes a woman’s world. Everywhere they are busy selling, gossiping.” Although the single-story, brick and wood market of Covarrubias’s day had given way to a much larger, two-story building of brick and cement, much remained the same. The predominant presence of hundreds of women buying and selling in and around the market was still in evidence , most in the same huipiles and enaguas seen in Covarrubias’s black and white photos in Mexico South. Other than the market itself, the only visible change was transportation. Women, especially those carrying goods to or from the market, no longer came in oxcarts. Now they arrived in moto-carros: engine-driven tricycles with a platform mounted over the rear wheels for passengers. Standing upright on these platforms, the women would sail to the market, hair and full-length skirts blown by the wind. But at times the women paid a price for having abandoned the wooden carts of Covarrubias’s era. Collisions between taxis and moto-carros were common; what the women saved in time with moto-carros, they sometimes paid for in broken bones. Shortly after my arrival that year, I had two revealing experiences in Tehuantepec’s market, the first involving a set of headphones. Because I did most of my shopping in Juchitán, and I knew that electronic goods were not sold in the market there, I assumed that this would also be the case in Tehuantepec. So, rather than looking in the market, I began my search for headphones at the record and stationery stores surrounding Tehuantepec’s plaza, but with no success. Then I remembered I had 177 once bought some cassettes from a vendor with a booth directly in front of the market. I paid him a visit and was given the runaround. “Speak to the lady in the locale behind me,” he said. I did. She had headphones, but they were attached to a pocket radio, and the two could only be sold together. “Try inside the market,” she said. “They’ll have headphones for sure.” I covered both downstairs and upstairs but came away emptyhanded . I gave up, pulled the exact change out of my pocket, and presented it to the lady with the radio and headphones package. She gave me a sympathetic look and said, “Give me the money; I’ll buy them for you.” With this, she left her locale unattended. I followed her past the butchers, past the cheese, through the totopos. Then she made a hard right near the first-floor entrance to the market. She stopped in front of a booth like hers that sold a little of everything: perfume, toy cars, jewelry, watches, and barrettes. “I don’t see any headphones,” I said. She grabbed my shoulders from behind and positioned me in front of a hanging rack stuffed with a dozen headphones and then walked away. When I turned round to thank her, she was blending in with the crowd on her way back to her stand outside the market. I caught up with her and pressed a 10-peso coin in her hand. “For your time, Señora,” I said. What I learned on this and many subsequent shopping trips in the area was that in Tehuantepec, 95 percent of the goods small enough to put in a bag or box are sold only in the market. Couple this with the fact that women control the market, and you’ll soon come to the conclusion that if the Isthmus ever gave place to a City of Women, it would be Tehuantepec and not Juchitán. Spending time in Tehuantepec, at least in terms of commerce, was like taking a step backward in time. None of the department , electronics, clothing, jewelry, and other stores that were so common in Juchitán even existed in Tehuantepec. A week later, I had a second experience that shed light on how women enforce the ban on men in Isthmus markets. I can’t remember why I went to the market, only that as I was leaving I caught sight of an attractive brunette in a white apron surrounded by blocks of cheese that were wrapped in red and yellow foil. I brought my camera to my eyes and pointed in the direction of the young woman. And though I pressed down hard on...

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