Forever Spring Farmer’s Market
A natural organizer and advocate, Alison Normanton is originally from Yorkshire, England. Her education includes foreign languages and music; she studied French and as a long time Bucerian, is fluent in Spanish. As an avid violinist, she leads the second violin section of the Puerto Vallarta Symphony Orchestra.
In 1995, Alison and her husband honeymooned in Mexico, and continued to holiday here on and off. In 1997-98, the couple decided to “get out of the rat race,” and backpacked through Central and South America, knowing not where they might wander, only that their return flight was booked from Buenos Aires fourteen months in the future.
On their next visit to Mexico she decided, “This is paradise, we need to live here,” and in 2006 they made the permanent leap. Alison has been here long enough to watch Nuevo Vallarta grow up and Bucerias bloom.
A number of circumstances brought Alison to where she is now, including divorcing her British husband (they remain great friends), once again finding love with Manuel, a farmer/sculptor/carpenter/poet and then tragically, through illness, losing that love. “A sad and harsh experience, both financial and emotional.”
After losing Manuel, she was down and afraid. “What am I going to do?” Ten years ago the point came where Alison made the decision to host a farmer’s market, something she had previously participated in with Manuel, and one thing Bucerias did not offer. She started the market on a Saturday in July, “stupid,” she says, of the timing. “There were only ten vendors, including me. We eventually ended up moving because of growth, and now host eighty vendors.”
Today, the Forever Spring Farmer’s Market is held each Wednesday in the La Comer parking lot, from November to April. La Comer, whom Alison says are a dream to work with, have also offered the possibility of a year round market, moving to the covered parking area in the rainy season.
The booths are 97% Mexican, with a handful of vendors from Uruguay, Chile, Argentina, Russia, North America, and Japan. “I enjoy the interaction with customers, and the camaraderie with the vendors. These people are my Mexican family.”
Marielena, an artist who desinged the A-Boards for the market, calls Alison, “enlacedora”, the linker of people.
Alison has charitable organizations like Human Connections, Tercera Edad (a seniors home), the library Rey Nayar, and A Dog’s New Life, set up their booth without paying the entrance fee. She also generously donates any profits from the market to a musical foundation in Puerto Vallarta that reaches children from La Cruz, Bucerias and Mezcales.
“Mexico has been really great to me. It’s allowed me to be creative. Since I’ve turned sixty, I am reflective, and have found what makes me happy, and those things that do not bring me stress. You pick out the good bits that work for you and you do the best you can.”
“I don’t sleep well. I think it’s because I’m too worried I’m going to miss something.”
In addition to organizing and leading the weekly market, here are just some of Alison’s accomplishments:
She loves to cook, and wrote a two-hundred page cookbook. She taught English to children and adults, and had Mexican people, “speaking English with a Yorkshire accent.” She is an accredited Real Estate agent through A.M.P.I. She takes tango lessons. As a violinist, she is a member of IAMPV, the musical arts institute that supports young people in music; The Salty Paws Jazz Orchestra, a flute choir and string ensemble, and mariachi and classical groups. “I like to mentor people that I see have potential that needs developing. Helping people, I love that.”
Visit the market and say Hola to Alison. You’ll find her chatting among the vendors, perhaps translating for a tourist, or moving to the sounds of the live music.
