John in the USA, on an MBA, by the bay ...: About Adam

Well, I’ve been back in Maputo for a few days now – and one of the things you can’t miss about this place is the huge number of peddlers. That is, people walking around the street, trying to sell things.

What are people selling on the streets of Maputo?

Well, lots of different things. But a few things are sold absolutely en masse … (let me quote you the opening price, and then how cheap you can get it for)

"5 in 1” DVDs ($12.50 USD is the opening price, but I’ve got them down to $5.50)
Phone recharge cards (starts at $2.50, but no bargaining on these)
Cigarettes (standard rate is 50c per pack)
Bunches of roses at night ($12.50 opening price, could get down to $2.50 if I could actually find a use for them)
Sunglasses and watches ($25 opening price, can get down to $2 if you try)
Bags (similar kinds of opening/closing prices) \
Imported perfume and men’s cologne ($35 opening price, haven’t really found out their “walk away” price)
African crafts – these are everywhere. Many different kinds – from beautifully carved wooden elephants to paintings to etched clothes filled with colours. Prices range in the hundreds of US dollars, to as low as a few dollars for the etched paintings.

Here’s a close up of some guy trying to sell some imported cologne. I’ll stick to $2 deodorant thanks!

Why street sales? (aka I don't see them on the north shore!)

For a third world developing country, street peddlers are a natural alternative to full-time employment for many young people and budding entrepreneurs. For starters, it doesn’t take much skill to sell – to tourists, it is all pretty cheap, you just need to be at the right place at the right time (basically, walk around all day) and sell for more than your cost price. There are numerous wholesalers who will lend you stock to sell – African ports nowadays are flooded with cheap imports from China and Dubai.

Furthermore, the margins are huge. When a labourer earns US $1 for a day’s work, making between $2 and $10 profit for selling just one DVD is a much more attractive option – particularly for people who don’t like manual labour (like me for example!). If you sold just one DVD per hour, you might make $50 in a day – more than someone working in a farm would earn in an entire month.

The dark side of peddling* ...

Unfortunately, as with all economies, the pendulum has swung too far. Maputo is filled with literally tens of thousands of young men in their 20s who’ve come to make a buck, having done the basic maths above. Furthermore, ex-pats like me have wised up and realized it’s a buyers market. I used to stop and look at the piles of cheap DVDs every time I bumped into a peddler, hoping I could get away with buying for “only” $7.50. Now I know I drive them down to near-cost price for them - $5 - whenever I want (though I’m trying to give up DVD-watching!), easily finding sellers who will reluctantly sell for that little.

The net result? You have thousands of sellers who have caught the $1 bus in from the outer suburbs into the big smoke to sell their DVDs and crafts who don’t sell one item in an ENTIRE DAY of selling. This is the dark side of peddling: where peddling becomes begging – peddlers willing to sell anything at any price, just for their transport home, with no one who wants to buy. Around the area where I stay, you have young men standing for hours at night holding up paintings in the windows of restaurants, endlessly hoping one of us will think about buying one.

About Adam ...

I’m staying in a hotel in a great location – some 20 restaurants within 5 minutes’ walk (we had Thai tonight … oh, yum! Sweet Pad Thai …). With so much activity, the small section between my hotel and a large intersection 250 metres away contains tens, if not hundreds, of peddlers during the day, and a decent contingent at night.

I was walking home from the Thai restaurant tonight when I was confronted by a man who introduced himself as Adam. He was an artist who sold paintings etched into cloth – kind of like a hand painted tea towel.

Adam spoke good English. And he was desperate.

As he explained to me, since 6am until now (almost 11pm), he had sold NOTHING. He didn’t even have 50 cents to return that night to his home. He normally sold the cloth at USD $17.50, but he would give me a special price – only $10 – this beautiful hand cloth, made with 5 colours, as he explained.

Now I have no desire for hand cloths, so I followed my normal routine of just walking away. But Adam persisted, stubborn but ashamed. I began to explain to him that, whilst it was nice, I don’t want to buy crafts, at least not now. That only made Adam drop his price. $10 went to $7.50, $7.50 became $5 – without me even bargaining (side note: on this trip, I’ve learned the best bargaining technique is often feigning disinterest to a desperate seller).

$5 soon became $3.

$3 became $2.50.

My guilt-ridden response

I watched Adam with a combination of caution, pity and despair. He was so ashamed that he was essentially begging, he would not even look at me. My first instinct was to make sure I had a safe place to run in case I felt threatened. This caution rapidly turned to pity as I realized the utter economic helplessness of his situation – he is a small seller in an overcrowded commodity market – trying to sell the same thing thousands of his peers are trying to, a product very few people actually really want.

Pity soon became despair. Like Adam, I was trapped – but in a situation of a different kind. I read the other day Matthew 25, where Jesus urges “whatever you do for the least of men, you do for me”; or the Sermon on the Mount, where He commands us to “go the extra mile”, and give to those who are in need. But I know that handouts only make things worse (the story of foreign aid’s monumental failure in Africa!). Despite his assurances he would never do this again, I knew that, if he continued making craft, there would come another day where he sold nothing and was stranded, again. It was an economic certainty, a matter of time, a question of when, not if. What would Jesus do?

In the end, out of compassion or guilt – probably a mixture of both – I gave Adam $1 USD to get a ride home. He told me that if I gave him another $1.50 I could have the cloth painting, a comment I ignored as I walked into my hotel.

I had caved in, failed, perpetuated the problem. There would be other Adams who needed money – would I give to them all? Would I buy their craft out of pity so they can supply more, ending up in the same situation?

The face of poverty is heart-wrenching. I want to end it, to provide them with meaningful employment, the opportunity to save money and get an education, to stop peddling and start doing something valuable. What drives my desire to end it is both compassion for this race but also the avoidance of guilt: I don’t want to spend my time here in endless ethical dilemmas – damned if I give to the poor, damned if I don’t.

Unfortunately, for the millions of Adams in sub-Saharan Africa, there is no easy solution. They can’t sell craft very well, and they probably wouldn’t make very good farmers. There is little work for them to do, and little they can do about it. What on earth are they to do?

What are any of us to do?

On a side note: one of the more interesting things that was being sold to me – a whiskey bottle full of tiny fluorescent fish - $1 USD! (see if you can see some of the fish in corner)