The Sell

Just as I was about to enter our apartment building one afternoon, a little kid ambled across my path. Clutching a bunch of yellow flowers in his hands, he mumbled something in his little kid voice, the one where they sound like they have just barely gained control of the movements of their mouths.

All I understood was “pesito, pesito”. Usually I’m pretty cheap when it comes to hawkers trying to sell their goods. This kiddo looked like he had just learned to walk, much less talk, so I wanted to find out how he came into his line of work. I crouched down and asked him how old he was, what his name was. He rattled off more unintelligible words to me, interspersed with “pesito”. What must have been his older brother ran over, but he didn’t look that much older. “No habla español,” the brother said.

“Solamente habla aymara, entonces?”

“Si.”

I chuckled – I don’t think it would have helped me any if the kid had been speaking English. As it were, my command of the indigenous Aymara language was nothing to write home about. I asked, “Eres su hermano? Cuantos años tienes?”

He was 7, and his little brother was 4. I had so many more questions – why were they out here in the streets of La Paz alone, where were their parents, where did they get their flowers from, and did I look like the type of guy who wanted to buy some flowers – but I guessed they had to get on with their jobs so I refrained.

I told myself that living with three women gave me reasonable cause to buy flowers (because they like such things, right?), and so I shelled out the one pesito. If having a job at an early age builds character, those kids are gonna have more than I ever will.