Queretaro's Marketplace: A Canvas of Chaos, Freedom, and Community | Day 326 of my 2023 Journal

Marketplace Mirror.

It got me thinking. The marketplace.

Maybe because I went there with my own three unschooled children and the like-minded family we currently live with, non-stop talking about personal freedom, anti-authority, options, reality, mass psychosis, and …. Well. All the important stuff.

Meanwhile, we chose new shoelaces to match the blue-ish houses of Queretaro, shopped for fruit and vegetables, tried new candies, and were overwhelmed by the butcher stalls in the narrow lanes of the marketplace, confronted with the heads of poor pigs, staring at us with dead eyes.

How is this related?

Well, one thing I like about Mexico is the diversity, the side hustles, the initiative, the relative honesty, and the chaos. There might be rules, but they are more like guidelines. There might be danger, but it is real, and you have to figure out for yourself what and where it is. There might be a mainstream, but there are lots of other streams, and they don’t necessarily flow together.

What am I saying? 


The way the marketplace is overwhelming and crowded and full of colors and options I like and don’t like, stuff I might need and might not need, had a vibe painting directly to my freedom baseline.

The chaos allows for freedom.

The options allow for differences.

There is nothing streamlined.

It is all a private initiative, yet it does not seem like every man for himself.

There is a lot of community, the sharing of meals, the trust in the combination of all the initiatives other create space with all that everyone will need. 


I am not trying to romanticize poverty, and I am sure many people inside this system do not feel and ARE not free. Still, how the marketplace acted like a mirror to the reality of anarchy was powerful to me.

Am I making any sense? Maybe to those from the very safe and well-organized Europe walking in step and have traveled to Central America. The options left open by the lack of rules, the lack of giant corporations holding everything in place of a specific narrative, and the feel of random chance leaving space for everything feels very liberating. 



At least, to me, it does.

With love

Cecilie Conrad

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