Street Venders

An important sector of Guatemala’s economy falls in the informal sector. This includes food sellers, fruit venders, shoe shiners, scavengers, and street venders. As Ana described it to me, “Everyone in Guatemala sells something. I sell clothes and cleaning products from a catalogue. Other people sell silver and gold jewelry. You should try to sell something, pues, Nancy.” In a developing country, it makes sense that most people try to make it by any means possible.

Street venders seem to be the largest faction of this informal sector of the economy. In any touristy town women dressed in traditional indigenous clothes comb the streets for gullible foreigners to by their myriad items. As a very white, red headed woman, I have the recipe for instant attraction of all the street vendor flies. They swarm around me whenever I appear in an area shoving their metallic necklaces, florescent fabrics, and rainbow hair bands in my face. The typical strategy of these street vendors is to first offer the good, then become indignant about it if you say you don’t want it, continue to thrust the item at you, lower the price repeatedly, and eventually, to refuse to take no for an answer. They are all about the hard sale.

I’d like to provide some examples:

1. Nut Sellers

Standing outside the US embassy waiting to meet one of Hanne’s friends, an elderly man walking on the shady street honed in on the fact that not one but three Americans were standing complacently by the embassy entrance. He stopped and began to proclaim, “Cashews! Cashews!” When we said we didn’t want any, his eyes widened and thrusting his plastic nut sacks towards us exclaimed, “CASHEWS! They are cheap and good!” We continued to express our disinterest even as the man continued his exclamations at the benefits of eating his cheap and good cashews.

2. Pirated DVD/CD Sellers

As if on clockwork whenever I leave Super Center Pais with my groceries, hoards of young men with hand-me-down L.L. Bean backpacks and hands clutching stacks of burned movies and CD’s latch on to me yelling, “Películas, CD’s, música!” It’s as if, since I’m a gringa, I will obviously want to buy their pirated material (although they often insist that their DVD’s are originals, which means they were filmed in the theater). Sadly, for these desperate chaps, I have neither a DVD player nor a CD player and am decidedly disinterested in collecting crap anyway. I always shake my head and continue on with their shouts of the greatness of their movie collection echoing in my ears.

3. Food Venders

Perhaps the least pushy group of the street vender crowd is the food venders. They generally seem to think, “If you’re hungry, you’ll come to me.” That’s probably a good assumption. When I’m in Xela or Antigua, I love walking through the market inhaling the odors of grilled chicken, burning wood, hot atol, heated tortillas, and hot chocolate. “Que le damos? What can we give you?” the señoras ask, but they don’t push their luck. If it’s obvious I’m not that interested, they stop pestering me. The same happens with the fruit and vegetable venders who yell, “Hay mandarinas, naranjas, fresas, sandia, melon…. There are mandarins, oranges, strawberries, watermelon, cantaloupe.” But, whenever I state that I’m headed off on another expedition, they say, “Okay, maybe Saturday,” And leave it at that.

4. Sticker, Card, and other such Venders

One day in Guatemala City, while Pibs, Hanne, and I were trying to enjoy an open-air taco meal (bad idea to eat in the open in Latin America) flocks of boys (who should be in school) came up to our table. One boy with Power Ranger stickers attached himself to Hanne. When she insisted she really didn’t want any Power Ranger stickers he steeled himself and began flipping through the stickers as if thinking, “If I show you more Power Ranger stickers you will obviously want to buy them.” He finally realized he was wasting his time. Pibs credited him with persistence, which I suppose is true.

In Antigua, Hanne and I were sitting on a park bench when a little boy of five came up to us. “Coooooompra,” he said with Bambi eyes, “Coooooompra. Mira. Muy bonito. Buuuuuuuy, look, very pretty.” He was trying to get us to purchase little cards with a painting of Antigua’s plaza and a prayer on the back. We attempted to tell him we really didn’t want to buy them, so he leaned his little body on me and shoved the cards directly into Hanne’s boob. “Whoa!” She exclaimed, and again insisted she didn’t want them. He switched aims and shoved the cards into my boobs, where I also exclaimed, “Whoa, kid!” Persistently staring at us with his big brown eyes he kept grinning and saying, “Coooompra! Bien, compra!”until after an awkward conversation with his mom, who did not call him off our boobs, he wandered away.

5. Craft venders

Single handedly, my least favorite, the pushiest, and persistently annoying group are the handicraft sellers. They are absolutely convinced that every white person wants whatever junk they are trying to sell. Walking through Panajachel I was accosted every minute to purchase ugly necklaces decorated with ceramic people-beads, pens covered in bright embroidery thread, my name written on a piece of rice, or richly colored and decorated clothes. The general tactic to convince gringas to purchase this stuff is to shove the item three inches from their face and insist that they need to buy it. If that doesn’t work, they will tend to show the person 5,000 of the same item (in different colors) convinced that if the gringa sees more of the item they will obviously want to buy it. Often these strategies come accompanied by attempts to speak English or to call the woman, “baby, muñeca, cariño, reina, or Barbie (one kid called me Barbie and I stopped, glared at him, and said, “don’t f***** call me Barbie!” I was pissed).

My favorite of such interactions was on the lakefront where Bridgette and I sat trying to figure out what to do. A woman came up, her arms laden with multicolored fabrics. She had targeted me and began explaining all the merits of purchasing a baby-blue quetzal decorated fabric. I told her over and over and over that I really didn’t want to buy anything. She said, “Look, so beautiful. Muy bonito. For you mother. Yes. For you mother. A present. A present from Guatemala. For your sister. For your aunt. For your brother. If not for someone you like, for your enemy. Buen precio. How much you pay? Good price. Okay, mira, for your Q40. Siiii, compra.” In the end I had to get rude and tell her I really didn’t want to buy her fabrics. As soon as she backed off another person came up targeting Bridgette. Really people!

6. Beggers

Little snot-nosed, grubby, and probably, lice-infested kids also like to attack the gringas. I suppose we seem sympathetic. Their attempt is to get coins from the tourists (or get them to purchase whatever junk they’re selling) for “noble causes” that range from bread, water, candy, shirts, shoes, to you name it, they’ve got the answer.

In Panajachel a boy loudly smacking and chewing a piece of white bread smothered in refried beans came up to me trying to sell some particularly unattractive coin purses. Watching him simutaneously eat and haggle was quite impressive. He followed me for at least two blocks saying, “Cooooompra. Mira, cooooooompra. UN quetzal. Mira, dame un quetzal. Quiero agua pura. Dame un quetzal. Sí. Sí. Mira. Sí. Un quetzal. Quiero agua pura. Buuuuuuy. Look, buuuuuuuuy. One quetzal. Look, give me a quetzal. I want purified water. Give me a quetzal. Yes. Yes. Look. Yes. One quetzal. I want water.” For two blocks! He really was convinced I was going to give him something. Finally, some other likely-looking tourist attracted his attention and I was free for 30 seconds before 4 other street kids came up asking for gum, bread, water, anything under the sun. The worst thing is they say it indignantly. It’s not a request or a plea it’s a you-better-give-me-something-and-I-know-if-I-say-it-demandingly-enough-you-will-give-it-to-me kind of approach. It is not cute, charming, or heart-wrenching but strictly frustrating and annoying. These kids need a begging lesson.

What gets me is when people say the junk is cute and actually buy the ugly necklaces, traje-clad dolls, cheaply made purses, and embroidery thread pens (come on, that’s soooo fifth grade!). Apparently the hard approach works for some people. Personally, I think the greatest help to development in Guatemala would be for business students to come down and teach this informal sector how to sell goods. Maybe a little supply/demand, strategies, coaxing, and teaching an approach besides the hard sell would be effective here. It might even get cheap tourists like me to consider being more interested in their items. As it is, I get really irritated every time I hear some people come up saying, “COOOOOOMPRA!”