Silent Looms by Tracy Bachrach Ehlers

Author:Tracy Bachrach Ehlers [Ehlers, Tracy Bachrach]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Business & Economics, General, Economic Conditions
ISBN: 9780292789296
Google: FSHUAAAAQBAJ
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Published: 2010-06-28T03:48:11+00:00

The Comerciante

San Pedro's market women vary from the aldeana who periodically sells a basket of radishes to obtain cash for needed commodities to the large-scale, full-time retailer who handles a variety of merchandise and large amounts of money and credit The municipio is large and diverse enough that the multiplicity of commercial options extends beyond the open air market plaza to the large indoor mercado, and then to depósitos, tiendas, and stores up and down the main streets of the town.5 The character of the Sampedrano economy is such that some businesses can operate on a regular daily basis while others depend solely upon the swelled traffic of the Thursday market and to a lesser extent the Sunday market To illustrate just how this works, let us examine the movement of fresh flowers in the market.

No flowers are available on non-market days because the diminished volume of buyers militates against the secure sale of the entire lot of this perishable product.6 Flower sellers recognize that their customers behave as they do, i.e., they rarely make a special trip to town for small items like flowers, but will buy as they pass through the plaza doing their weekly shopping. So, like other small traders, flower sellers bring their products to market on the day they come to town to buy other goods, Thursdays and Sundays. For flower-sellers to consistently attempt to buy and sell on another day would be counter-productive.

Clearly, there are always daily sales to be made of necessities that will not wilt and die if they linger on the shelves. Thus, stores that line the main streets selling cement, shoes, medicines, flour, etc., are open every day, as are nearly two hundred mercado shops and thirty plaza stalls. In addition, about two dozen canasta women carrying on sporadic trade on non-market day sell enough everyday goods like avocados, tomatoes, peanuts, and mangoes, to make it worth their trip to town.

Female traders maintain control of the internal market through trade connections based on wholesale products supplied by men. The most common strategy is for female traders to bring small amounts of product from home and their aldea, and once they arrive to purchase a few additional canastas of tomatoes or onions or pineapples off the trucks of male wholesalers. The morning of the market, trucks arrive from the coast or Guatemala City to supply these small female plaza dealers. But this is only one pattern of local trade handled by Sampedranas. Some of them buy cases of produce in other markets or from farmers in coastal aldeas on the way to market Others buy from local warehouse depósitos or in smaller quantities from women traders in the plaza for later resale, either in San Pedro or in their home aldeas. When their trucks are empty, male wholesalers on their way to distant markets buy from women selling products grown or processed at home. Whatever is left over after all these transactions will be bought up by a late arrival to be sold at inflated rates in the afternoon or at reduced rates for the next day's sales.

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