Locals flock to free-spirited market
Nick Sotolongo
Staff Writer
Commons Photo by Nick Sotolongo
There is such a thing as a free lunch.
The first Saturday of every month the Carrboro Town Commons hosts the Really Really Free Market, providing participants with free food as well as an array of other goods and services. About 150 people attended the February event Saturday, braving the cold weather to give and receive in an unconventional setting.
The organizers of the Coalition for a Really Really Free Market, Vinci Daro and Dana Powell, encourage people to come out and provide for each other, inspire each other, and share together in the abundance of goods, skills and creativity found in Carrboro.
At the market, a variety of goods and services were offered, as well as the opportunity for the public to donate their time and spare things. Among the most popular items were clothes, books, artwork, bicycles and food. Impromptu barbers gave haircuts and amateur artists painted children’s faces, all without a price tag.
Fourteen-year-old Carrboro resident William Clayton was grateful for his free hair cut, a tightly trimmed mohawk complete with bangs. “This is just as good as if I would’ve paid for it. Actually, it’s better because it’s free,” Clayton said.
Clayton admitted that the market’s unrestricted atmosphere inspired his style. “Hey, it’s Carrboro, and I’m at a free market. I’ve got to think outside of the box, right? What better way to do that than reorganizing my thinking cap?”
He later said that, in part, he was just rehearsing what to tell his mother when he got home. “At least I didn’t spend any of her money. She can’t be too mad,” Clayton reasoned.
Despite being the event’s founders, Daro and Powell keep a low profile and claim that the event is self-organized by the participants. The pair state on their Web site (http://www.carrboro.com/reallyreallyfreemarket/) that, “No authority rules over the RRFM. We trust that people sharing, rather than competing, will be able to find their own ways to cooperate with each other and function smoothly.”
With the lack of a definite authority, however, comes a general sense of disorganization throughout the market. The goods being offered do not seem to have any sort of order to them and are laid throughout the Town Commons.
Emiliana Guevarra-Posada heard about the market through the various fliers posted in Carrboro and came looking for clothing for her three children. She looked through the market for a long time but said the disorganization made finding what she wanted difficult. Yet Guevarra-Posada was still surprised that everything was free, even if it lacked the organization of other discount stores like Goodwill. “This is what comes with a truly free market,” she explained, “I believe the right words are a free-for-all.”
Amid the piles of clothes, the two most accessible and well-prepared stations in the marketplace were the coffee table and the anarchist literature section. The market’s links to anarchy are also echoed on it’s Web site.
“The RRFM is an afternoon when social status can be earned by giving things rather than owning things,” the founders wrote. “And when giving and receiving happens directly rather than being administered through an institution or organization.”
The connection with anarchist ideology has been present since the first RRFM, organized by the SouthEast Anarchist Network to protest the Free Trade Area of the Americas in 2003. The FTAA is an agreement to reduce trade barriers among nations in North and South America. Critics of the agreement like SeaNET see the deal as supporting the United States’ economic colonization of South and Central America.
Those at Carrboro’s market, however, seemed less politically charged. It was difficult to find anyone who had heard of SeaNET or was willing to impose their political opinions on the marketplace. “I am just here to donate some of the things I don’t need,” said Todd Lieto as he looked over the literature. “And hopefully come home with something unexpectedly great and, of course, for free.”
Lieto further explained that he enjoyed the opinionated pamphlets because of their unique perspective and did not feel obligated to support their ideologies. He said a brochure about herbal abortion and one detailing indigenous resistance were examples of things he enjoyed reading without necessarily feeling leftist pressure.
Regardless of the event’s origins or intentions, politics do not have an overbearing presence at the RRFM. Instead, it is an event of good will where the community comes together to share its goods and services.
Even if you are not interested in mohawks and old bicycles, citizens can at least have some coffee and a free lunch with their neighbors without even bringing their wallets.
The Really Really Free Market is held the first Saturday of every month from 1 to 4:30 at the Carrboro Town Commons.
Hey, Nick. Great photo! Jock