Jeans from the Mercado!

I guess I have to start by admitting the reason I needed to buy new jeans: I have never in my life gotten too fat for my jeans...until now.  I guess all the awesome food I was getting when I lived with my host family was just too tastey for me to ask for smaller portions. (We all know I never turn down good food.) So, I wore through my favorite pair of “everyday jeans” in the inner thigh area – which I realized when I got up from my seat on the bus and felt air entering through a hole the size of a golf ball! I'm telling myself that because of it's placement, no one noticed as I walked up the entire isle at my stop.

This unfortunate event left me with two options...1 head to an overpriced clothing store to use American money to buy jeans, or 2 head to the mercado and see what I could find on the carts of the street vendors. (Option 3 – repair my jeans – was actually not an option, because they really don't fit me anymore.) Of course I opted for numero dos and headed out to the market!

There I was, strolling down my usual path in “the city” of Rivas, through the marketplace towards the park. I had already passed the blocks of fruits, veggies, rice, beans and corn, and I was coming up on the clothes, hair clips, earrings, shoes etc when I saw her. A woman had a whole table of really cute skinny jeans just waiting to be worn. So naturally, I asked if I would be able to try some on because jeans never fit me right. “Claro que si!” she told me as she asked me what size I thought I might need. Well since I had just worn through my size 7s, I opted for a 9/10. She then led me back down the block where I came from and walked me into the back of one of the market stalls. Since these stalls are set up on a normal street, the backs of them open into the sidewalk in front of people's houses. The door to the house (her house?) was open because here in Nicaragua, if people are home, the door is always open. She quickly pointed me towards the bathroom and went back out to her table of jeans. So, I walked into this house, explained to the people working in the kitchen that I was just trying on jeans, and they didn't even look at me twice. I found the bathroom and tried on the jeans only to find out they were too small!! WHAT?! 9/10 jeans?! I headed back outside and up the block again to her table and told her to my dismay, that they were too small. (All clothes and shoes run very small here it seems.) I then took the 11/12s back to the fitting room – oops I mean stranger's bathroom – to try again, this time entering without saying anything at all, just throwing a smile and wave to the kitchen as I passed it. Success!

So I bought my first pair of mercado jeans – which are super cute skinny jeans with pretty silver designs on the pockets...very Nica. I'm wearing them right now, and I love them! I paid my 170 cords (about $7.75) and was bid a very good day, filled with God's blessings. Yeah...have I mentioned I love it here?