Dispatch from a Lithuanian Market

15–19 November 2005:Ukmergé, Lithuania

We went to the market this morning. Unlike the many people walking along the road in the frost, we drove the mile or so to the marketplace.

Dan had parked the car in a lot that he described as being more secure than the muddy strip outside his building. The Lithuanians are extremely talented at taking apart and refurbishing cars: this was a great blessingwhen he took his car in to have the trunk refinished. It came back completely repainted, looking better than it ever had. This automotive skill also meansthat auto theft for parts is a popular pastime. One of Dan’s neighbors, a German, had parked her green Opel near the building, and came down three days later to discover that her natty little car had been taken, and a dummy matching in size and color had been left behind. He didn’t know if she used it or not.

The secure lot didn’t seem very promising—it seemed to be junkyard and parts yard, which would suggest that maybe you wouldn’t want to park there. There was no gate or camera. So I was perplexed until we were accosted by the junkyard dog, a fearless little thing that scared the spit out of me. The dog actually likes Dan, as dogs seem to do. There’s some mystical chemistry he seems to have with dogs, although it turns out that a good deal of his skill is technique. He told me that my response (bolting in fear) was all wrong (oddly enough). You should stand still and not make eye contact until the dog has had a chance to sniff you. Only then do you talk to it and see if it would like to be petted. This particular dog would like to be petted, but only by Dan.

The other part of the security system is the owner of the yard, who sauntered by. He knows who Dan is (not a thief), so there was no further technique necssary. Smiling or saying hi would be out of line, in fact.

The farmer’s market was a blast from the past: vans and trucks congregated in a icy lot, and the vendors opened the rear doors and stood around in the cold, with piles of cabbage, onions, potatoes and carrots at their feet. There were a lot of older people in rubber boots and button-flap hats and babushkas. One stall sold twig brooms (you could choose your broom head and handle separately). If you weren’t from a culture where these are utilitarian objects, they’d seem quaint, or look like witches’ brooms.

Dan bought an armload of carrots—maybe seven pounds--for $2.50, and a 10-pound sack of onions for $3. Considering what you pay in the grocery store, which seemed dirt cheap five days ago, this is a much better bargain. This is a poor country: your job, which might start at 6:30 in the morning as our neighbor’s does, might only earn you around $700 per month.

The grocery store has a few things I didn’t see at the market: cigarettes for one. You have to pass a gaunlet of smokes to get through the checkout counter. They’re arrayed at eye level to form a tunnel of tobacco. Not that the galaxy of candy, batteries, tabloids, and fashion-porn we enjoy in the States is really preferable.

Nearby was a second market, with non-farm items. A majority of the stalls were selling clothes, and I got a dandy pair of black thinsulate gloves for $4. Also on the menu: shoes, old tools, fake flowers and covered candles for gravesites, oceans of baked goods, coffee and tea, and ladies’ underwear. I don’t think most of the old ladies were interested in the thongs or multiude of brightly-colored pushup bras, but their granddaughters certainly are. You dress up if you can, and the girls are really something in their supertight jeans and fur-edged parkas. Although the styles communicate prosperity, one fact contradicts it: no young person is fat. In fact, the girls are rail-thin; it’s just how you are.

In an indoor section of the market, hundreds of people were buying fresh meat from long rows of cases. Automatically, I found myself breathing the Jizo mantra for all that butchered life. If we maintained an awareness of what meat actually is, we’d all eat a lot more carefully.