I had a lot of persistent entrepreneurs while at the coast. One wanted to sell me “lobster” which I actually tried. They looked pretty tasty and had obviously been cooked, so I had one. It was fairly tasty- you sprinkle ground chilies and salt on the meat that is down their back, and then squeeze lime juice on them. I probably would have bought more of them to eat if they weren’t so messy and if I had a husband who didn’t think eating things that looked like this wasn’t disgusting!
While we were sitting around our little bungalow guesthouse, we were visited by this young fruit salesperson, who was carrying this tray full of fruits on her head. We bargained with her for a pineapple, 3 bananas, and 2 mangoes (total $2.00 and that’s high!) Anyway, after we bought from her and were just talking to her about her school and things, her cell phone rang! Wow! You’re peddling fruit on the beach and you have a cell phone! It was her mother, who thought she might be playing pool, which I thought was a stitch. She wanted me to tell her mom she was indeed selling fruit.
The bracelet kids were very eager, some annoyingly so. But the 2 in the picture were really friendly and spoke English very well, so we talked for a while. Their little fingers were expertly weaving threads for bracelet-making the whole time we talked. She wants to be a tour guide all over the world and he wants to work in a restaurant. I did patronize their traveling business a little. Begging is a huge industry here. A lot of adults use children in their plea, or send children out to beg. People are encouraged never to give money to small children- if you wish to help, you give them food. There are absolutely no social services here, so widows with small children are in trouble, as are amputees, the blind or deaf, the infirm. There are some interesting industries that have been created by ex pats that help certain groups- for instance- they trained blind people to become massage therapists. There are also industries for amputees around. On the beach was an amputee who got around pretty well on something that looked like a giant Frisbee and wore flip flops on his hands. We gave him a little money. Later that evening, Michael saw him counting his money and said it looked like he’d had a good day. It’s a problem that a lot of people do better begging than working. I guess it’s a sort of profession too!
While we were sitting around our little bungalow guesthouse, we were visited by this young fruit salesperson, who was carrying this tray full of fruits on her head. We bargained with her for a pineapple, 3 bananas, and 2 mangoes (total $2.00 and that’s high!) Anyway, after we bought from her and were just talking to her about her school and things, her cell phone rang! Wow! You’re peddling fruit on the beach and you have a cell phone! It was her mother, who thought she might be playing pool, which I thought was a stitch. She wanted me to tell her mom she was indeed selling fruit.
The bracelet kids were very eager, some annoyingly so. But the 2 in the picture were really friendly and spoke English very well, so we talked for a while. Their little fingers were expertly weaving threads for bracelet-making the whole time we talked. She wants to be a tour guide all over the world and he wants to work in a restaurant. I did patronize their traveling business a little. Begging is a huge industry here. A lot of adults use children in their plea, or send children out to beg. People are encouraged never to give money to small children- if you wish to help, you give them food. There are absolutely no social services here, so widows with small children are in trouble, as are amputees, the blind or deaf, the infirm. There are some interesting industries that have been created by ex pats that help certain groups- for instance- they trained blind people to become massage therapists. There are also industries for amputees around. On the beach was an amputee who got around pretty well on something that looked like a giant Frisbee and wore flip flops on his hands. We gave him a little money. Later that evening, Michael saw him counting his money and said it looked like he’d had a good day. It’s a problem that a lot of people do better begging than working. I guess it’s a sort of profession too!
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