Do the hustle…in the epicentre of peddlar’s paradise

Vending or “hustling” on the streets of Kingston has been an economic lifeline for many persons including women and children. Gwyneth Harold went Downtown, did a little hustling and got some insights into the intricacies of this very colourful activity.

Invisible is the humble peddler. To be everywhere, yet nowhere. These ‘scorned’ members of the trading community, the bane of shop owners and sidewalk vendors, are like hand servants to pedestrians and motorists – think of the last time that you bought guineps.

There is no record of how many working peddlars there are, nor how they contribute to the labour force, and child labour in particular. What we can certainly say is that is “nuff a dem” out there. A study by economist David Wong in 1996 suggested that petty trading does not pay as the worker ends up using the income for subsistence. However, the comment of vendor advocate, Dunstan Whittingham in a 1989 sidewalk symposium, “to remain employed involves trading, to sell and to survive”, seems to remain true. Sadly in 1998, the Ministry of Labour indicated that 22,000 working children lived in Kingston. A significant number of them are peddlars. Most of the vendors and peddlars on the streets, bottom feeders of commercial activity, seem to be women and children. How much of a living can they make? I sought to find out by joining their throng one Saturday in September.

Greater than King, Queen, Duke, Orange and Church; Princess Street, it is said, reigns supreme as the area where more money changes hands than anywhere else in Jamaica. I made a modest investment of $200 to see how much it could multiply.

At 9:30 am, commodity trading in Kingston City was in transition. Coronation Market, having peaked early in the morning, was relinquishing supremacy to the wholesale dry goods and grocery side of Downtown. Princess Street and Orange Street delineate a main artery for the wholesale district from where vendors and itinerant peddlars disperse goods to the Malls and Plazas of the Corporate Area.

At ground zero, I stood in a haberdashery and gazed at the clothes pinned to the walls and hanging from the ceiling, wondering; what would sell well today? Cost of plain cotton panties, $18.00 ea. Cost of white ankle socks, mixed sizes, $360.00/doz. Cost of French-cut zebra print panties, mixed sizes, $300/doz. Cost of ladies slippers, $30 ea. Cost of brassieres, mixed sizes, $400/doz. Cost of Igloos, $30/ea. Cost of lace tablecloths, $240/quarter doz. Along Beckford Street and even Peters Lane, there was no shortage of ideas. Selling clothes poses a major challenge to the uninitiated as the packages are of mixed sizes; and I was not optimistic about closing sales for the larger and smaller than average ones. After half-an-hour of indecision I settled on mothballs. A pack of 100 clear plastic bags, like the ones that you buy 2lbs flour in, costs $45.00; and a 400 gramme pack with 84 mothballs costs $60.00. If I sold seven packages at $20 each, my returns would be $140.00; from a direct investment of $63.15. This would achieve a trading profit of $76.85 or 155 % with most bags remaining for future trading.

Even as I made my purchases, the slight voice of an eight-year-old girl with pleading eyes caused me to look down. Arranged in her hand was a pack of cotton swabs, a bottle of hair oil and three plastic combs, the kind that break with a crack when they “buck up” stubborn knots in your hair. Across the room a boy with similar goods, probably her big brother, had approached another customer. They had decided to specialise in toiletries today.

To break bulk and repackage, I kotched on the steps of the only vacant storefront, the steps of Union Bank. It had no vendors because it is outside the Saturday shopping district. Twenty dollars is in direct competition with the other peddlars who were selling kitchen towels, dozen clothespins, bottle drinks, cloth adhesive bandages, bundled escallion, plastic hand fans, shampoo, conditioner or lotion at that price. For just $10.00 more, a girl hawked plastic basins and a youth, white merinos, mixed sizes.

My first customer was a family man in a white compact car.

“Mothballs for $20.00?”

He pointed to a wholesale grocery. “Tell the lady in the stripe blouse and jeans skirt to buy one.”

The woman looked past me to the man. ” I don’t like those things.” Even as I held it out to her she turned her shoulder against me, shrugged and passed me a $20 dollar coin, still not making eye contact. I thanked her and felt empowered. My first sale!

I left them on Tower Street and stood in front of Liberty Sales on Princess Street. Vendors occupied the entire store frontage without actually competing with it. Liberty sold dry goods, they sold shoes. Pyramids of sneakers formed a row of displays that were space saving as well as attractive. As nobody was selling mothballs, I decided that this was as good a place as any to broaden my vowels and say, “Matball for $20.00! Keep it clean and fresh with matball!”

All my life, until today, people looked at me when I spoke to them. My voice and bearing invited recognition from others as a fellow human being. As a peddlar, people avoided my eyes, deliberately ignoring me. When I called out their facial muscles tensed, or they occupied their minds with busy thoughts until passing by.

“Hello miss, some nice and fresh matball?” Bad strategy, her grocery bag is empty, let her do the family shopping first.

“Sir, some matball?” A slightly averted head and quickened steps.

Then a woman heading home with a load, seemingly satisfied with her purchases, increased my sales to two shortly before a young man stopped at my left side.

“How much fi de camphor ball?”

Camphor balls? Oh no, I had been using a culturally incorrect term!

“Twenty dalla.”

He stood there gazing at me, and I cautiously looked up to see a slim, handsome dreadlocked youth with a soft voice; and now a nice smile. The rattle of metal caught our attention as a bored looking, plump Chinese boy pushing a two-wheeled trolley passed by. The guy spoke again.

“You know is Chinese people make Kung Fu movie? You like those movies?”

I nodded because my speech would expose me as a fraud. His soft voice was clear over the din of the street.

“Well I like Western.”

Instinctively, my smile escaped; and I pulled it back in my face and fixed my gaze on the camphor balls slung between the fingers of my left hand. Just as bus conductors hold paper money.

“So, you make any progress since morning, with your selling?”

“Yes,” equally softly.

He had run out of openings and I, eyes downcast, said nothing.

“Are you being looked after properly?”

The tenderness of the question took me by surprise. I flicked a glance at him and felt my face warm before I could give a little nod.

“Well, just keep safe you hear,” he held my eyes for a few moments before continuing down the street.

I exhaled. To clear my head, I walked to the epicentre of peddlar’s paradise, corner of Princess and Beckford streets. About half of the mass of dollar-stretching shoppers searching for clothes, household items, groceries, trinkets and tokens walk past here. To my right a veteran of the streets wore a merino on his head to advertise the goods in a carton box at his feet. Across the road, a man was measuring and cutting curtain lace for someone. I stood, not too close to a soda seller, and called out my wares. Two women bought drinks from his assortment of cold non-alcoholic beverages that were stocked in a supermarket trolley and shaded by a large umbrella. Thirst slaked, they took three packets from me. I told them that they gave me luck, then moved on.

At that hour, King Street was still near deserted. All the stores were open, and vendors commandeered the pavements of South Parade, but there were hardly any buyers. To test the patience of a storeowner, I stood in Ammar’s empty storefront and solicited their few customers. Unharrassed after fifteen minutes and a sale to a young man, I moved along.

There was one packet left but the street had few pedestrians. I decided to chance a fast food store and headed down to McDonald’s, but that too was disappointingly quiet. Still, I called out, “Camphor ball! Keep it nice and fresh for $20.”

“Over here.”

The voice came from across the street, and I hurriedly dodged a lorry and a taxi to reach the turbaned dread in the white car.

“You have any more?”

“No Sah, everyting sell off.”

So after two hours there was $35.00 more in my pocket. I could buy a lunch, and increase my investment to two packs of mothballs – with the expectation of making more sales, and perhaps meeting more good looking men. At any rate, I’d be working.