Trinkets
The beach vendors are part of the landscape on Playa La Ropa. Everyday they walk the beaches selling hats, fruit, jewelry, pottery, bags and anything that the tourist might buy. One fellow from the market comes in the afternoon and sells Oaxaca cheese. Another man sells peanuts. We call him "cacahuate hombre". Several mothers drag their children up and down the beach in the hot sun. They should be in school, however, this is how the family survives.
This women is selling an assortment of beaded jewelry and bracelets. Most are very polite and will continue on with a "no gracias". One of the interesting things that happens once a week is that all of the vendors do beach cleanup. They all start at one end of the beach (about a mile long) and pick up all the litter and debris. I guess this is their service project to give back to the community for being able to use the beach for business.
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ReplyDeleteI did not know about the vendor weekly clean up of the beach! There's something about this that troubles me, and it has to do with knowing where the vendors live. The gap between the vendors and the tourists is the elephant in the room. I don't know what the correct economic answer is, but my emotional response is probably akin to how Memo feels. Let me use another example: the Dump Kids. Why do they exist? It seems immoral that allowing children to be raised in the city dump is tolerated, and it brings up images of child trafficking. The vendors in Zihua nickel and dime their lives away for survival, while well-off tourists from around the world drink lemonade & beer, and then the vendors clean up the beach! It seems like such an injustice. Karis and I talked about all this, and she sees it more matter-of-factly: an opportunity for poor Mexicans to cash in on tourism. I can see her point, as it is similar to the argument for cheap Chinese imports being based on cheap Chinese labor. Still... it really hits a nerve. There are people who work hard, offer products at a reasonable cost, do this day after day in order to feed their families, and yet their homes have tar paper roofs and dirt floors, not to mention lack of medical services, closed sewer, potable water and education. Jesus said, "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God... Woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort." I sure hope He's right about the poor, but I don't want His words about the rich to be true, though I assume they are true. I am honored to be a friend to someone like yourself, who is trying to do something about this situation, not that it will change things, but it does bring some relief to those who need it.
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