This field note is part of Fragmented Ecologies.
Friday, July 18, 2025. 7:32 am
On Mondays and Thursdays after 10 pm, I walk into Plaza Samper Mendoza with a small notebook and a phone camera. It’s a popular nocturnal herb market in Bogotá, Colombia—rows of dried leaves, bundled roots, and bottled syrups. My project here is simple to say, harder to do: I’m keeping a field diary of what splinters off—leaves, powders, and the names and stories that gather around them. A seller I know only as la Mona presses a limpia bundle into my hands: seven bitter plants, no label. “Para las malas vibras,” (against the bad vibes) she says, smiling at my hesitation. When people ask what I’m doing, I say: “Aprendiendo a oler y a nombrar. Viendo qué queda” (Learning to smell and to name, seeing what remains). They nod, amused. I buy a small packet of ruda (rue) and keep moving.
By 6 am the next morning, the nocturnal market begins to wind down. Goodbyes arrive as gestures: chalk prices wiped clean; a hand scale tapped so the needle returns to zero; a mortar swallowing bark until it’s dust. I write quick notes—“powder equals promise,” “names are temporary”—and then my hands smell like a pharmacy. I’m learning that many cures require a remainder: a pinch thrown away to confirm the dose, a few leaves burned so the smoke can carry the effect. In the back corridor, I kneel beside a drain. A green scatter clings to the grate—possibly ruda, possibly mint. The smell is sharp, the identification shaky. I photograph it and make a label for later: Fragment No. 058. Possibly medicine, possibly trash. Definitely memory. The plaza keeps its last inventory on the floor.
Around me, departures continue. A parcel is wrapped for shipment to a different city. A recipe travels by voice note—dos puñados, agua tibia, en ayunas. A stray dog waits for the sweepers’ bounty. The guard waves me out as the stalls fold into themselves. I leave with three small packets, a photo of the drain, and dust on my palms. This is what the long goodbye looks like here: a thinning more than a closure, an un-naming that still lingers on the tongue. I walk away already planning my next return.
