Mercado Lucas de Galvez

UBELONG Team Leaders Leo and Martina strongly encouraged me to visit the big market that's located near the hostel and I thought, hey why not?! After walking for about twenty minutes, Hemi (my roommate) and I arrived at a local square with tons of little tiendas lining the streets. I was about to give up on finding this elusive supermarket when we finally saw the glorious sign indicating that we had arrived at Mercado Lucas de Galvez! I was so excited to see what was past the entrance since I was expecting to see a super-sized supermarket like the Soriana Supermarkets (or the Stop & Shop and Trader Joe's stores we see in America haha).

The first thing we encountered were little shops selling local Yucatecan food, toys, and other miscellaneous goods. Upon further exploration, we started to see vendors selling vegetables and fruit. I was super excited because I had an intense discussion at the food bank about the local fruit and whether it'd be possible to try them before I left Mérida. Luckily, I found vendors who sold mamey and piñuelas and jumped at the opportunity to buy some (only 10 pesos for a cup full of piñuelas and 10 pesos for a whole mamey!).

Piñuelas in their cup portions

Mamey cut to show its freshness

All of the vendors sold a variety of goods and as tempting as it was to buy a little bit of everything, living off of 600 pesos for the next couple of days forced me to restrain myself :( I did stop by a stand that sold different spices for cooking, such as relleno negro, achiote, and condiments for escabeche. My experience in this market reminded me of when I visited Taiwan and Shanghai and went to their night markets, where the "halls" of vendors seemed to never end and there was plenty of food to try!

It was quite an adventure walking through this labyrinth of a supermarket because there was no organization at all in this place; I wish I took better pictures in this place but unfortunately I didn't capture any great shots to show here! Just imagine a flea market, indoors, selling anything from household goods, spices, vegetables and fruit, to fresh pork rinds, aquarium fish, to geese, chicks, bunnies and even puppies! It did break my heart when I encountered this animal section of the market because it was the last thing I expected to see there :( I hope all of these little critters will be sold to good homes and not for food >< We explored the market for about two hours before we returned to the hostel to rest our tired feet haha.

I thought time was going to go by so slowly here in Mérida since the lifestyle is a lot more lax in comparison to in NYC, but I am returning home this weekend!! I'm excited to be going home but it's sad to say goodbye to the great people I had the chance to work with at the food bank, along with Martina and Leo :'( Tonight we'll be having a little farewell dinner with some of the staff from the food bank to celebrate my time here and wish me a safe trip home, so excited! :)

(Almost) SPRING BREAK!

I'm so excited to have spring break this year; a week and a half of vacation time to relax.. who am I kidding? There's no time to relax during senior year when you're just trying to graduate! There are so many projects and papers to continue working on during this short break and I'm just thankful I don't have classes to keep up with during this time. On top of this I have the Baruch Asian Student Union show to prepare for and practice every day! 

It's my last few weeks as an undergraduate at Baruch and I'm kind of glad that I ended up attending Baruch (not just for the opportunities fund, free laptop and free ride!) but because of some of the people I met through college. Baruch Kappas helped open me up to the world and broke the shell that was holding me back from pursuing a lot of things I felt I was too shy to accomplish; the Nonprofit Leadership Alliance helped establish me as a leader as Co-President and Co-Vice President; and lastly, the opportunities fund I was granted as a Macaulay Honors student allowed me the chance to go to New Orleans for Habitat for Humanity and Ecuador to volunteer teaching English. 

I take my life for granted sometimes but I do know that I am pretty blessed when it comes to my parents and supporters cheering me on every step of the way to make sure I had a good education and the best of the best. They never spared a cent when it came to prep classes for school or specialized exams and were always pushing me to go beyond the expectations I had for myself. If it weren't for them, I wouldn't have made it into Bronx Science, nor would I have made it to Macaulay Honors at Baruch. If I hadn't gone to Baruch, I wouldn't have met my friends Peng and Brian who told me about UBELONG, and I wouldn't have known about this organization that opened my eyes to what I could be doing with my life: helping others and improving communities.