In Mexico, the Daily Struggle to Get By - Selling Pastries Door to Door Roman Revueltas Retes - Milenio
go to original November 6, 2013

A guy appears at the entrance of a shop asking if we want to buy some empanadas [meat-filled pastries]. He tells the manager and me: “They’re really good. My mom and I make them.” We hardly pay him any attention because seeing people selling unsought products is now such a daily occurrence that we barely notice him.

But there was something in the fleeting appearance of the man – his stare, maybe, or the tone of his voice or an uncertain gesture – that, once on the street again, the scene comes to my mind and, regretting having not bought one of those home-baked empanadas of his, I try to imagine the circumstances of his existence.

For starters, an unemployed person going out into the world to sell things is a sign of a decisive entrepreneurial spirit, as well as the flagrant display of how cornered an individual plagued by misfortune can feel.

Read the rest at Mexico Voices

Translated by Stuart Taylor

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