Folks gotta eat.

With a room full of folks and an empty refrigerator, this past Friday I jumped on the #1 out to Tropical Foods in Roxbury. In a city starved of culture, Tropical Foods offers a one stop shop of languages and flavas.

"Taxi? Taxi!" the parade of Latin men make sure I know they'll be there on my way out. An array of smells greets me as I enter the doors... varying shades of brown pushing silver carriages up and down the aisles while momma's of 4 shop on $50/month budgets sway their hefty hips to the salsa music playing overhead. The music is only interrupted for calls for assistance announced, of course, in spanish. Tropical Foods is an extended version of the "Ethnic/International/Goya" sections of Shaws and Stop & Shop. Shelves are filled with "3rd world" goodies; special ingrediants thrown together to make a cold country feel like home... if only during dinner time. Avocados, coconut water, mangos and callaloo, fish heads, Adobo and tostones. From Jamaica to Trinidad and everywhere in between, there's something for everyone (and inexpensive!). In aisle 1 there's a young woman yelling at her chubby chocolate son in Jamaican patois; aisle 4 I find a Dominican couple deciding on what will be for dinner that night en espanol and in aisle 5, a hefty Haitian woman cackles with her whole body as her girl retells the drama of the night before in creole. I pay at the register, just meeting the budget for my own family of 4 (Kindred and dem), I bag my groceries and walk back out into the midday sun. The taxi drivers are momentarily distracted by a heated argument between two men, for a second I think I've gotten away... and then... "TAXI? TAXI!!" I'd been spotted. "No thanks". I grab a Banner while I wait for Cuz to come help me out. I smile and shake my head... grateful to be a part of a the ongoing Tropical game of hopscotch.