Friday Meat Delivery

Oct 30, 2009
Salento, Colombia
Elevation 1900m

Salento is too small of a town to have a market of its own. There are a few small shops around town that sells fruits and vegetabels, for eggs and dairy you have to go to different store where you can also buy dry and packaged goods. If you are in need of meat, the butcher shop is where you go. There are about 3 butchers in town. I was told that a meat delivery truck comes by once a week and stocks the shops with fresh meat.

I went to the butcher on thursday and bought some gruond beef for spaghetti and meatballs and noticed that there were very little meat left in case, slim pickings. I walked by the butcher shop the next day, forgetting that it was friday, fresh meat day, and was surpirsed by the sight of a bloody cow head on the floor and all the meat hooks filled with sides of beef. Then it made me wonder, how much meat does a town of 3500 consume in a week? It looks to me that each of the butcher shop gets at least an entire cow per week, is that enough for the residence of Salento? What about the resturants? Do they get a seperate meat delivery or do they source all of their meat from the butchers down the street as well? There are too many things we take for granted.

The Detail of the Thing or also known as The Serial Killer Instinct

Oct 29, 2009,
Salento, Colombia
Elevation 1900m

It is always the little tiny miniscule details that get to me. Irrespective to how many markets I have been to, it is always that moment when I see a detail of a thing and that would be what sticks in my mind and that is what get to me...just a little. Sometimes it is that single drop of blood on the floor, the eyelash that is left on the eyeball, the mole that is on the peeled off face or the tiny whiskers that is on the muzzel. It is never the whole carcass, it is never death in its fullness. It is always these tiny moments.

It reminds me the show "Dexter" or of detective novels where it is always the little things. It is always these moments that the author focuse in on, it is always these little details the character, albeit the Serial Killer or the Detectives obsess over. Is it because it is not death that bothers us but the details that reminds us of the life that once was? Or is it because death is too vast to comprehend so our brain focus in on the miniscule so that we don´t freak out?

"One death is a tragedy, a million is statistics." Is our reaction and focus on the details another reflection of the same sentiment?