I didn’t really have anything to blog about this morning, so I thought I would look through some of my slides to see if I could find something. I came upon this photo that I took in 1987 of one of the many street vendors in San Cristobal de las Casas in the Chiapas area of Mexico. This is one of the thousands of vendors that could be seen with their wares displayed on blankets spread out on sidewalks throughout Mexico and Guatemala.
A lot of them catered to the tourist trade and sold colorful woven garments and bags. Others who seemed poorer had little stacks of sticks of chewing gum to sell. While it made an exotic scene for me, it was serious business for those people, who depended upon their sales for their livelihood.
Now with Covid causing so much havoc to so many businesses around the world, I can’t help but wonder about what is happening to people like this woman, who lived so low on the economic scale. The tourists have disappeared as travel is restricted and curtailed. With so many of them selling the same tourist-oriented products, how are they able to survive today?
View my paintings at: davidmarchant2.ca
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