In the most arid part of the country, where the soil is chalky, the peasants turn to tep farming, transforming the landscape into a surreal grid of rectangular ditches, a quarter of an acre each, maybe ten feet deep, filled with muddy gray water. Men drag fine nylon nets through these ponds for tiny, translucent shrimp no larger than newsprint. Women spread the catch out along the side of the road—the national highway—to dry in the sun and to mix freely with dirt, bugs, and dung. The masses of shrimp smell strangely sweet and briny, looking like giant sheets of lint from laundry dryers. Once
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