"There is no vacation here for the poor"

Matanzas/In July and August, school holidays return children and adolescents to their homes. Many state employees also pause. But in Matanzas, the city does not rest completely: on its sidewalks and portals, informal vendors are still there, immutable under the inclement sun or the shadow that the eaves barely offer.

“This is my workplace. Thanks to what I sell here, we subsist my wife and I,” says Lázaro, a retiree who accommodates phosphoreras, soaps and pen on the steps of a house on the Tirry road. His voice is mixed with the rumor of traffic and the improvised proclamation of other street vendors without taking a breath. “There is no vacation here for the poor”

Old school bus driver never imagined earning like this. “At first it was difficult because I had never sold a pin,” he confesses. “There was also the logical fear of being fined for not having a license. But going hungry is terrible. Seeing empty cauldrons gave me strength to decide, and I’m going for a year selling in this way.” Their strategy to evade inspectors includes “some gift to make those of the blind eye and leave where they came.”

In Matanzas, informal vendors seem an extension of the urban landscape: under colonial portals, in front of pharmacies or around the markets. Not even Sundays can afford to rest. “These products are not mine, so most of the money does not belong to me either,” explains Orestes, while accommodating its impromptu folding table at the entrance of a pharmacy. “When they warn me that there is inspection, I move away from the cafeteria with family and on the way through neighborhoods where I sell less, but I run less risk of fines.”

There is everything on your small table: phosphoreras, instant glue, joints for coffee makers and pressure pots, rats, pen and even linings for the ration book, which is increasingly used in the shortage of the shortage of the wineries.

“Who hurts that an old man like me to sell nylon jabs and razor machinitas?” Lázaro asks, while remembering the afternoon when he broke his diplomas of national construction avant -garde, accumulated for nine consecutive years. “In addition to paying us miserable pensions, the government complicates life even to look for us some pesos that do not even complete the month.”

Others prefer more discreet methods. Demetrio, sitting on a bank in La Calzada de San Luis, holds three cigarettes of cigarettes in his hand. It doesn’t need more: buyers arrive alone. “I get them with the winery administrator or a friend who works in a Mypime,” he admits in a low voice. “I don’t want trouble, but I have to do something to not starve, because the thing is very hard.”

Poverty grows, extending from the neighborhoods of Simpson and La Marina to the old residential areas of High and Versailles Peñas. For informal vendors there are no weekends, holidays or summer vacations. They stay until the day gives them the right thing to eat. And then, after the afternoon, they collect their tables, keep the little money earned and hope that tomorrow does not surprise them an inspection or hopelessness.