Much like Kay, I was also very excited about buying new sandals when we went to the Abastos market yesterday. In fact, after three hours of meandering around the market randomly, Kay and E were ready to go home but I said we should push back in and look for the sandal makers, as we had yet to find them.
So when we found a sandal maker who was very friendly and asked him if he had anything in my size, I was somewhat surprised at what happened. Mexican sizes run differently than US sizes, so I tried an 8 and it was way too small. And I tried a 9 and it was still too small. That was the biggest he had, so he started going around the market talking to other sandal makers and eventually came back with a size 10. And it almost fit but seemed a bit too narrow so I decided not to buy them. And then we wandered stall after stall, and never saw another pair of size 10's, let alone the size 11 that I think I needed.
Now, I know that I am not a small person. At six feet tall and some larger number of pounds than I would like to admit, I am definitely in the higher percentiles of size wherever I am. But I'm not used to being the biggest person in a room, either.
When we went to the Yucatan a few years ago, it was very strange as the people there are all very very small, and when I walked down the street I was regularly a foot or more taller than anyone else I saw. Things in Oaxaca arent nearly as obvious -- there are plenty of Oaxacans who are roughly my size and even some who seem bigger -- but I guess as far as the sandal-makers are concerned I am too big to cater to. Sigh.
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