Rodolfo Morales, artist

Rodolfo Morales, Ocotlan's famous artist...

They had a bunch of his artwork there. I didn't find it attractive at all but you know I am a philistine anyway. Modern enough to be boring but not so modern to be exciting. It reminded me a little of Marc Chagall, whom I don't care for much, either.

Then we went to Morales' house. He passed away a few years ago, but his house is operated as an art school for children and as a museum.

Inside the gate of the house, I met a tiny tan chihuahua dog who loved me because I scratched him very well.

There was also a parrot in a cage that said "Adios!"

The central courtyard of the huge house was lovely, full of plants, flowers, and climbing vines. A big staircase up to the rooftop studio was lined with pretty yellow and blue geometric patterned stained-glass windows.

Then we went back out through the market at a rapid clip and found the bus stop. I bought two funny, cartoonish very naive paintings by a man named Roberto Benitez, who sold them to me. They are in a style typical of paintings sold to tourists, but they were quite charming, so I contributed to the local economy by spending $30 on them.

The market was an amazing, lively, poor, filthy place. In the plaza, skinny dogs napped in the dirt. People had their wares spread out on the sidewalks. One lady had about 15 feet worth of the local emerald green pottery. I wondered how they all got there - do people pack the stuff in on buses?

The women and men were even smaller than I had seen in Oacaxa, some of them just about 4 feet tall, full-grown.

You can tell that a lot of these people have had very hard lives. One-eyed, crippled, blind, no teeth, deeply lined skin, selling their few bundles of vegetables or almost-worthless corn...