A few more pesos, a lot more stress

摘要

The central de Abastos wholesale market is the largest of its kind in the world, sprawling over an area half the size of Mexico City's airport. Yet on New Year's Eve, it was still hard to move for the shoppers clogging up the l-kilometre (1400-yard) grocery aisle, buying everything from pig's heads to sugar cane to grapes for that night's festivities. Outside, it was another story. People without enough money to shop were sifting through piles of discoloured and discarded avocados and tomatoes, wrapping what was still edible in scraps of newspaper and furtively carrying them off for their own more meagre supper.