Door-to-Door

I slipped on the steep cobblestone street as I tried to catch up with her. With the speed of a jack rabbit, her barefoot steps moved with short and quick motions.

“Margarita, please wait for me,” I implored, fearing that I might lose sight of her. It was starting to drizzle rain, and the night was falling as I watched her slip into a dilapidated bakery building.

“Finally, here you are,” I said. She just looked at me and smiled, saying something in her native tongue that I can only imagine.

Margarita Diego de Sánchez, 70, was born in the hills above Cuetzalán, high in the sierra of northern Puebla, one of Mexico’s most colorful states. This tropical region, hillsides lush with ferns, coffee beans and banana plants, is where Margarita calls home. She has never had the opportunity, nor the desire, to leave.

In the eyes of outsiders, Margarita was born into an extremely poor family. In her eyes, her family was blessed with a bountiful and fertile land. “This land has been in my family for many generations,” she explained.

Her home is a series of branched walls attached with wire, rope and anything that can hold them together. Cardboard acts as a shield from the elements, which gives you the feel of living in an oversize box. The dirt floor is clean, and the pine bench I sat on was more than 100 years old. The kitchen was made up of an ancient adobe wood-burning stove, two makeshift shelves attached to the wall with a rope, and a well-worn metate — an oversize grinding bowl.

Margarita sells her homemade tamales door-to-door in order to survive. How can she live like that, you might ask. Actually, you don’t have to look any further than any neighborhood in the Phoenix area.

The other day, I gave a dish washer a ride home during the middle of the afternoon. As I drove through the central Phoenix neighborhood, I ran across a woman carrying a large basket perfectly balanced on her head. She was cutting across a dusty, empty lot filled with trash and old tires. When we talked, I learned that this plump woman with plastic sandals was named Maria. She was carrying a basketful of homemade doughnuts to sell door-to-door. Having a scant selection left to sell, she invited me to the meek one-room shack she called home. The floor was clean and the lack of furniture evident in the rolled bedding carefully placed against the wall.

You don’t have to travel far to find poverty and people in need. Ideas, customs and traditions know no borders. Selling food in order to survive is common and accepted in Mexico — and apparently in Phoenix, as well. I will continue to seek out Maria in the humble neighborhood near Roosevelt and 24th Street. I get great homemade doughnuts, and Maria gets my hard-earned money.

Silvana Salcido Esparza is a local chef and restaurant owner.