The Flea Market

By Mohamed El Hassan Abou El Fadel Morocco World News Inezgane, Morocco, August 20, 2013 I was wondering whether I should write something about the flea market or not, but then I decided that after all not many people write about flea markets. In Albuquerque, the flea market was quite something, at least for me as an exchange student. It gave me an idea about the mixture of people who make up the United States and about the different ways in which they make their living. The flea market’s population was composed of Hispanics, Indians, whites and blacks. The goods varied enormously and ranged from German Second World War helmets to Indian handicrafts and from jumping beans to pecans. Silver jewelry ornamented with turquoise was displayed on small camp tables. Thus, you could see beautiful rings, necklaces, bracelets and even turquoise and silver ornamented ties. There was something else that was of great interest, it was the fact that in that flea market, you could buy real silver dollars. At the time, a silver dollar cost seven to eight banknote dollars.  The silver dollars were real works of art and I have always wanted to own one of them to serve in the least as a souvenir from the US. I never managed to get one but after some eighteen years I got a chance to revisit the US but still could not get a genuine dollar, what I got instead was a small Sacajawea dollar and it was not made of silver. All the same, if you can’t get what you want, you will have to want what you get. The Sacajawea dollar for me was just fine. What impressed me most were the Second World War items, it seems that when glory is past all what remains goes into the books of history, museums or else to the flea market. And here were displayed in the scorching sun of New Mexico great numbers of uniforms, iron swastikas, helmets, binoculars and drinking cans for antique seekers to choose from. After strolling for a while in its different alleys, I left the place and got back to town. It was a journey into both the bygone days of simple people as well as those of a once strong and powerful Reich.