A rumble in the rastro amongst the Christna

One of my favourite weekend activities is rummaging through flee market items, finding little jewels that lay among things that I may call junk and others may call treasures. My "jewels" also may be considered by some nothing but trash. However, once I find these things, they make me smile and give me a surge of excitement.

Two weeks ago I found an entire crate filled with old 1950's match boxes. Needless to say, I got down on the ground like a wild bore that sniffed out a truffle and began to scavenge the contents.

This weekend, while in Madrid, I went to the great Rastro: a mega flee market, a cornucopia of cheap lingerie, illegal CDs, caged birds and old chachkahs that sprawls up hill and outward into small side streets. I don't waste my time on the main street where all of the cheap clothes and most usual items are displayed in nice stands. As soon as I can I make my way into the side labyrinths that spill out into plazas of even more stuff.

Part of the fun, of course after the mere happiness of finding an unusual item, is the bargain process. I used to be nice. I would chat with the people; tell them why I wanted the item, etc. A trip to Morocco and a run in with a Berber and an exchange of too much money for a cup of tea and a nice rug, taught me better. Now I know to slightly insult their product, to bid real low and insist that no one is going to buy this piece of crap but me. They will be lucky if I even buy it. By the end of the day, my booty included, three old oxidised sheep bells, part of an old 1950's wind up toy, a little praying Buddha, some hand made square nails and an old wooden rat trap.

When I bargain, I try to do it with a bit of a smile but with tough words so when I heard some guys arguing in Arabic about something, I passed it off as market jargon. I still decided that it would be best to keep walking up hill to keep my distance. On lookers started to group around the men, like a fight in a school yard. That is when the pushing started and some other guys tried to keep it from escalating. Like a second round of row, row, row your boat, I heard chanting coming from down hill adding to the cacophony of fighting men.

A few minutes later the chanting started to get louder and louder and started to overcome the noise of the yelling. It was the Hare Christna. There they were singing "hare hare" and the others shouting their Arabic insults, an ironic juxtaposition. It was such a climatic, surreal moment. I just began to laugh. I looked around. No one else seemed to get the humour. I began to walk up the hill trailing the Hare Christna parade and realised I almost tripped over a dog. He looked up at me; one of his eyes had been poked out. His soket was now just a red hole in his head but I am sure that he too got the absurdity of the situation. I said excuse me, he nodded and I went to meet some friends for wine.