Rosa Martinez

In Cacahuatepec, Oaxaca, Rosa Martinez’s father would take the family’s three donkeys laden with handmade chiquihuites—woven wicker baskets—full of the stones he had mined from the river to sell in the small towns of the region. Rosa would carry on her head, secured with cloth, the foods that her mother had made to sell in the town center: tamales, bocadillos de coco (sugar cane and roasted coconut snacks), moles, tortillas, enchiladas, and atole blanco (a warm drink made with masa). She had to carry them; the burros were already laden.