Gettin' By - Diableros

This is part of a series called Gettin' By, that looks at street-level jobs, and the basic economics behind them.

Profession: Diablero; Cart Puller.

Location: Mainly in and around marketplaces, or wherever a lot of street commerce and trade happens.

Usually identified by the Mexican chifle, or whistle, or by yelling "diablo, diablo, diablo," while running full speed under a heaving load in a space with barely enough room to side step, or otherwise remove yourself from momentum - and thus harm's - way.

Breakdown: First of all, the carts are called diablos, or devils, and thus the dudes pulling them, diableros. I've heard a few theories on why the cart is named as such, but the most common is just that they are buggers, weighing down on your back.

Diableros pay 10 - 15 pesos to rent the diablo for the day, and some have to pay a líder, who controls the flow of those working in his/her zone.

"Diablerismo" (which is not a word) employs almost exclusively young men. Its a pretty intense job. Load sizes and distances vary the price, but a weighed-down load, like above over a medium distance can fetch as much as 30 - 50 pesos, or 3-4 ish bucks. Most short trips tend to be around 20 pesos.

If you walk through any of the downtown market areas, its a sea of these dudes, running alongside traffic, deeking through each other, the infinite pedestrians and the parade of vendors rolling on the edges of the busy thoroughfares.

But, each diablero usually has to wait quite a while for each trip; "hurry up and wait" in full effect.

Some - usually those with clients - can make decent cash. But the most anyone has told me they make regularly is 400 - 500 pesos (though they admit to having the occasional big days during 'la temporada," La Navidad). More common for the younger guys is in the 250 - 300 range.

Many of the older dudes who have been on it forever, seem to have fallen into a rut of making 50 - 80 ($6 ish) during the week and 100 - 120 pesos, or around $10. They blame the increasing presence of box stores and supermercados in Mexico, which drives people away from street markets and tianguis - especially those selling produce - and seem resigned to that fate.

Minus 12 pesos for transport to and from, daily eating needs and the fact that most have families, and that is not stretching very far.

Point of Reference: A crew of older guys I talked to put in 10 pesos each, and share a lunch of tortillas, beans, chile and 2L bottle of coke that a woman in the neighbourhood prepares for them.

ps. Popeye now works as a diablero...

Night Time, Dominoes

A group of men sit outside their car-parts shop, playing dominoes. The kid stands lookout.

Doctores, Mexico DF

New York Times

Rumoured to happen for months, the NYT finally announced that it will put up a paywall. I have been meaning to blog about my full out support for this for much time. But suffice to say I am beyond stoked about this, and hope it encourages other media companies to do the same.

Free content is great in the sense of my insanely tight budget and thirst for news. But its not right. Do you know how much time and resources goes into getting stories from the field? Or how much work goes into being writer/photographer/editor? News, and I would argue especially photojournalism, give the illusion that its relatively straightforward to source and produce. Its not. Getting original stories - especially off the beaten path or in tricky, dangerous places - is frustrating terrain, that requires lots of ground work. Which requires cash, and people who can do it. Well.

The Times, more than any other outlet, brings together the best of the best, and creates a truly top-end product (which is not to say that I like every writer/photog/section there, but they each bring impressive skill sets.)

As my friend Jina Moore cleverly wrote earlier today, of NYT's prowess:

The Times is the journalism world's valedictorian that is also hot and good at sports -- the do-all, take-all that inspires as much consternation as adoration. Of course,the hot valedictorian graduates after four years, and the rest of us mortals never get to relish in watching his/her undoing. The Times has been around 140-or-something years, with a long record of excellence and also a rather fat file of mistakes.

Track record's such as the Times should be respected, not taken for granted by clicks of the mouse. While I do think the $15/mo fee could be a bit lower and still be fair, the continued assumption that we deserve to know about everything told with the highest standards without paying cheapens how we view the work.

I have long since been frustrated that amidst the trumpets heralding doom in the world of journalism, everywhere from The New Yorker to the Guardian to GQ to the Globe and Mail to Reuters and AP continues to pass along all this work for no fee.

Lunacy.

If you appreciate how much goes into producing this work, and (on an mildly selfish tip) the worth in paying the people who do it fairly, you should be supporting companies who produce it. 15 bucks is not all that much loot for most Times readers to receive professional quality work.

Enter Jina again:

Subscribing to the Times -- or to your local newspaper, or to other media outlets you think do important and needed work -- is not your usual financial transaction. You're not trading $15 for $15 worth of goods. You're supporting an enterprise, one that sometimes disappoints you and sometimes provides a service that's literally impossible to put a price on. You're helping to provide a public good -- journalism -- at a time when it's in the interest of the powerful, everywhere, to see it die.

One time.

- -

On Times-related note, Lyndsey Addario, Tyler Hicks, Stephen Farrell and Anthony Shaddid went missing in Libya on Tuesday. On a post this afternoon from NYT, their whereabouts remain unknown. Let's hope they are doing okay, and for a speedy release.

Please note the photo at the bottom of the NPAA article and check out Addario and Hicks' photos and essays on covering Libya, last week on the NYT Lens Blog. Commitment to the core and excellent photos that, for some reason, were delivered to us for free.

Photos From Ivory Coast/Liberia

A few weeks ago, I posted a complainy-type post on twitter, asking why almost no photos were coming out of Ivory Coast, despite the escalating violence and growing refugee situation.

My gudfren' Glenna Gordon, was recently commissioned by UNHCR to get up there, and do just that. Unsurprisingly, she came back with amazing photos. And, as far as I know, the only ones from there.

This photo essay came out on BBC last week. (Though you cannot link to individual photos, '4 of 8' is a stunning shot.)

Today, Glenna posted another 15 or so on her blog. My favourite is above (i think the Butu'o crossing from IC to LIB). But they are all excellent, and tell a story not being told much, in lieu of the more news-friendly revolutions up north.

(admittedly, wish i was there covering that right now.)

Gettin' By Comes Back... with Tamales!

Remember when I used to write semi-regular posts called 'Gettin' By', that looked at (informal) street sellers in Monrovia, and how they make money despite the purported 85% employment rate at the time? And then, how I said I was going to keep it up in Mexico, but then I only wrote three posts?

Well, I do. It is still a topic that greatly interests me, and that I actually spend a lot of time engaging with here. But I let the blog posts slip, mainly due to time. Mexico's street selling/informal economy - like I noted months ago - is really different than where i started in Liberia. To sum up: its massive, more organized, more diverse, more service based. But ultimately, just as essential.

Hanging out with a lot of vendors lately, I have a few lined up. So here's one to start, from a few months ago in Ocosingo, Chiapas.


GETTIN' BY - TAMALES

Profession: Tamale Vendor

Location: There are many ways to spot a tamale for sale. Sometimes vendors set up with a large steel pot near a market, store, metro stop or other busy area, often in conjunction with luke warm café or atole. Carts retrofitted to stack these pots onto are equally, if not more, common. They are either pushed while walking or powered by a bicycle.

Anyone in Mexico City is well aware of the sales pitch. Every night, between 7:30 - 10, the carts pass by, blaring the classic recording: tamales, oaxaqueños, tamales calientitos!

(jaja... not joking, as soon as i wrote that, dude biked by on the street, blaring it out. Classico!)

Breakdown: First and foremost, tamales be the bomb. So a lot get sold. But the range is huge.

In the photo, Sylvia sells at the 'pirata' bus station in Ocosingo, Chiapas. She sells 3 small ones for 13 pesos, and tends to clear 60 - 70 in a 10 hour day. Net profit: 80-ish pesos a day (3 - 4 hours selling, 2 - 3 hours preparing + a few times a week buying supplies and travel).

The morning tamale vendor near my house packs about 100 big'uns. 10 pesos each, served in bread (una torta de tamal). They offer other products, but claim to claim to make 600 + pesos in a morning, after all expenses. This gets shared between the 3 people involved.

In my favourite small town on the Michoacan coast, the two tamale ladies plod their course each day, and make 50 ish pesos a day off visiting surfers. This jumps up on weekends and exponentially during Navidad o Semana Santa. Interestingly, their new sales pitch is that they sell them at 6 pesos each, or 3 for 20. I usually go for the three, just cuz.

Point of Reference: In Ocosingo and rural Michoacan, cost of living is quite low. Many earn the Mexican minimum wage, which is 50 pesos/day; $4. Five pesos can get enough corn flour for daily tortillas for a small family. But gas still costs 9 pesos a liter and drinking water about a peso a liter.

In Mexico City, 3 pesos gets you on the Metro. 30 pesos buys you the cheapest comida corrida lunch, and a plain t-shirt at a street market, 40 pesos.

Treeplanting Movie

Don't remember who took this shot, but a classic: distraught, sittin' with homies, waitin' for trees on the cutblock. Pre-work, at the end of the 2005 season.

I used to plant trees. A lot of them. Though most people don't believe, an average full day for me in my final years fell around 6000 trees, with the occasional bigger day. 1.1 million trees in total, lifetime. This life is long over.

My friend Jason Nardella hit me up today with good news: his documentary, 78 Days, about life at my old company is reaching its final stages, so see the trailer here.

It was mainly filmed the year after injuries forced me to quit; an event that falls into the 'mixed blessing' realm. But, set in the crazy town of High Level, Alberta (once my summer home), it will feature several true blue amigos, the crazy life I loved, but could never live again.

ups, Jason. Looking forward to it.